Speaker 1: On the Bechdel Cast, the questions asked if movies have
Speaker 1: women in them, are all their discussions just boyfriends and husbands,
Speaker 1: or do they have individualism? It's the patriarchy, zeph and
Speaker 1: Beast start changing it with the Bechdel Cast.
Speaker 2: Behold, Jamie, I send you out as sheep amidst the wolves. Well,
Speaker 2: I'm the devil and your duddy.
Speaker 3: Me when I'm Keanu and from Florida. Well that's wild,
Speaker 3: that's you're my father the devil, like sir, Come on,
Speaker 3: come on. I like the choice. Every choice in this
Speaker 3: movie is a choice.
Speaker 2: It certainly is.
Speaker 3: The choices are taking place four thousand times a second.
Speaker 3: I thought you were gonna say my favorite sin Is podcast,
Speaker 3: you turn into al Pacino and then say my favorite
Speaker 3: cit Is podcast. Also, can this movie pass the Bechdel test?
Speaker 3: If everyone is secretly al Pacino? If al Pacino is
Speaker 3: lurking beneath the skin of we are to believe like
Speaker 3: seventy percent of the characters on screen, can it pass? Right?
Speaker 1: Well?
Speaker 2: Is it that?
Speaker 3: Can Jackie? And unless she's al Pacino?
Speaker 2: Well, I was like, okay, is it al Pacino infiltrating
Speaker 2: everyone's bodies? Or are they just like I don't know
Speaker 2: little minor demons. Literally, they've sold their soul to him.
Speaker 3: Who knows, who knows, you know, who might know? Andrew Niederman,
Speaker 3: the writer who brought you Pin What Yes? Pin, Yes, exactly. Yeah,
Speaker 3: And he's still alive. He's eighty four. He's in Palm Springs.
Speaker 3: We could get in the car right now and be like, wow,
Speaker 3: is everyone al Pacino? He also, I mean, I think
Speaker 3: according to his scholarly journal Wikipedia page, The Devil's Advocate
Speaker 3: is his most famous novel that got adapted. But he
Speaker 3: also wrote Child's Play.
Speaker 2: Oh that it's more famous than The Devil's Advocate.
Speaker 3: Unless he wrote a book called Child's Play that's not
Speaker 3: Child's Play, in which case I redact and he shouldn't
Speaker 3: have done that. He also wrote a book in two
Speaker 3: thousand and three called The Baby Squad. I had fun
Speaker 3: on his on his sicopedia page. Oh goodness, Andrew Niederman's
Speaker 3: The Baby Squad. Anyways.
Speaker 2: Well, then we also have Tony Gilroy, yes of and
Speaker 2: or Fame, Indoor Fame, writing the screenplay.
Speaker 3: I mean, I hope they cut him a big old
Speaker 3: check for this. We love the Gilroy bros. On this
Speaker 3: podcast indeed. Okay, okay, we got to get our guests
Speaker 3: in here. Just one of the greatest of all time
Speaker 3: who brought us one of the movies of all time?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, should we introduce ourselves first?
Speaker 3: Or I guess so? I guess so. Sorry, we haven't
Speaker 3: recorded in two weeks, so I forget how to do
Speaker 3: my job. So welcome to the Bexel Cast. My name
Speaker 3: is Jamie Loftis.
Speaker 2: My name is Caitlin Jonte. This is our show where
Speaker 2: we examine movies through an intersectional feminist leanne, using the
Speaker 2: Bechdel test as a jumping off point. What is it though?
Speaker 3: The Bechtel test is what a woman talks to al Pacino.
Speaker 3: Alison Bechdel came up with the Bechdel test back in
Speaker 3: the eighties for her comic collection Texs to Watch Out For.
Speaker 3: Originally a queer metric that was sort of written as
Speaker 3: a one off joke, has since been applied more broadly
Speaker 3: in the mainstream and does not at any point address
Speaker 3: what if someone's secretly al Pacino? True. However, there is
Speaker 3: a lot to talk about with this movie in general,
Speaker 3: and I was actually like, I can't say, pleasantly surprised
Speaker 3: in good faith here, but I could say I was
Speaker 3: surprised at how how much there is to talk about
Speaker 3: with regards to gender.
Speaker 2: I agree.
Speaker 3: So let's get our returning guest. I'm like, is it
Speaker 3: her fifth time? Do we have to send her a jacket? Unclear?
Speaker 2: Perhaps you know her. She's the host of You're Wrong
Speaker 2: About You Are Good and the podcast The Devil. You
Speaker 2: know it's Sarah Marshall.
Speaker 4: Hello, I would love a jacket or any piece of
Speaker 4: maybe a goblet.
Speaker 3: Oh my god, putting that out there. Do you not
Speaker 3: have any goblets? I feel like you have to own
Speaker 3: a goblet. I feel like it's pink and opal lighte. Yeah,
Speaker 3: I do.
Speaker 4: You're right you've had putting out of one of those probably, yeah,
Speaker 4: but I need a bigger one that's engraved.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: And this certainly is a movie.
Speaker 3: I just am so excited to talk. But first, before
Speaker 3: we talk about the movie, we want to hear about
Speaker 3: the podcast. I'm so excited it's finally coming out, and
Speaker 3: obviously it is in conversation with this documentary we're covering today.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's true. It is a documentary, this biopic, Yes,
Speaker 4: this pick of the Devil.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So tell us about the devil.
Speaker 4: You know, well, I'm so happy to be here talking
Speaker 4: about it with you and bringing it out into the
Speaker 4: world like my very own al Pacino spawn. But this
Speaker 4: is a show that I've been Jamie, We've been talking
Speaker 4: about for a long time. I've been working on for
Speaker 4: a long time with amazing producer Mary Stephan Hagen, and
Speaker 4: it's a close up look at the Satanic Panic. It's
Speaker 4: coming out from CBC Podcasts, and it's the kind of
Speaker 4: thing that I've been wanting to do for such a
Speaker 4: long time where you get to kind of not just
Speaker 4: try and tell the story of how the Satanic Panic
Speaker 4: worked structurally and how it kind of spread across North
Speaker 4: America and then you know, to beyond, but also to
Speaker 4: tell that story by zooming in and having conversations by
Speaker 4: individual people who were affected by it and who were
Speaker 4: caught up in it. And so our first episode opens
Speaker 4: with the story of a woman who had the gall
Speaker 4: to go to small town Kentucky to try and teach
Speaker 4: photography to teenagers and was quite literally chased out of
Speaker 4: town based on allegations that she was looking for blue eyed,
Speaker 4: blonde children to sacrifice. And boy, does that feel like
Speaker 4: a story that could be happening this week in America.
Speaker 2: Very true.
Speaker 3: Yes, unfortunately. I was like, so, I mean, because I've learned,
Speaker 3: I mean really, everything I know about the Satanic Panic
Speaker 3: has been from you and from your work before we
Speaker 3: knew each other over the years, and I'm just I'm so,
Speaker 3: I'm so excited. It's an opus of sorts and it's weird.
Speaker 3: If like, in the five years that I've been learning
Speaker 3: about the Satanic Panic from you, it felt like, wow,
Speaker 3: well we've moved on as a society. Yeah, since then,
Speaker 3: but now it's back. It's very much back.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, it's back. Like penny Wise, our pin one
Speaker 4: could say our pin one could say pin a book,
Speaker 4: which there is an ad for in one of the
Speaker 4: mass market paperback editions of Michelle Remembers. Yeah, a book
Speaker 4: whose kind of backstory we get into on this show too.
Speaker 4: And yeah, I feel like it we you know, look
Speaker 4: at how it's moving into the present day. But I
Speaker 4: feel like one of the things I love about studying
Speaker 4: history and that shaming I think is such a big
Speaker 4: part of your work too, is that by learning about
Speaker 4: kind of the things that people have gone through before
Speaker 4: and also what people have survived before, it's more thinkable
Speaker 4: to try and get a grasp on how to proceed
Speaker 4: and how to be helpful in the raging moral panics
Speaker 4: of today.
Speaker 2: It's true, Absolutely, it's true.
Speaker 3: Well, we're so excited to start listening. I know that
Speaker 3: our listeners and your listeners. It's kind of just a circle. Yeah,
Speaker 3: and so everyone's a big pot luck exactly. So if
Speaker 3: you haven't started listening already, now is the time. And
Speaker 3: if you haven't seen The Devil's Advocate, well, now is
Speaker 3: the time to pirate it on one, two, three movies,
Speaker 3: which is what I did for this episode.
Speaker 4: Same, or to watch the TV edit on YouTube, which
Speaker 4: is we'll take you right back to watching it on
Speaker 4: TNT in two thousand.
Speaker 3: And three, knowing me way Yeah, okay, So to get
Speaker 3: into The Devil's Advocate in nineteen ninety seven by Taylor Hackford, Titanic.
Speaker 2: Year, the Year of Titanic.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he also directed An Officer and a Gentleman and
Speaker 3: Ray kind of a random assortment of movies from the sky. Yeah,
Speaker 3: and he's got style. He's got style. Apparently he's got
Speaker 3: beef with al Pacino as well. I saw that, But
Speaker 3: in any case, nineteen ninety seven movie Sarah what is
Speaker 3: your history with this movie?
Speaker 4: Well, I mean watching this did take me back to
Speaker 4: a seeing bits of it on TNT after school in
Speaker 4: like two thousand and three, and then I remember watching
Speaker 4: this in full the only other time I've done this
Speaker 4: when I was living in Madison, so it would have
Speaker 4: been twenty six and at the time, I was like,
Speaker 4: I'm going to be a lawyer, and I was watching
Speaker 4: a lot of just lawyer movies, and I feel like
Speaker 4: this was just like one of my list of lawyer
Speaker 4: movies to watch, the same way that I watched like
Speaker 4: The Firm that week and The Verdict, etc. Yeah, it's
Speaker 4: always it's a lot of the something you know. The
Speaker 4: another movie I watched during this period, which I fail
Speaker 4: very nostalgic for is Primal Fear, which is such a fun,
Speaker 4: ridiculous experience, and both that movie and this movie, interestingly,
Speaker 4: in a post Ojay world, are about criminal defense attorneys
Speaker 4: who are shocked, shocked when they realized that their clients
Speaker 4: are guilty.
Speaker 3: And it's like, you know, what is like wha.
Speaker 4: Lawyers generally have some suspicion that maybe they're defending a
Speaker 4: guilty person. They're not like this surprise, I wouldn't.
Speaker 3: Say someone who's considered to be a law prodigy. I
Speaker 3: was like, you don't get right that far in you know,
Speaker 3: non public defense law with the idea that everyone you
Speaker 3: defend it like it just it just doesn't make sense.
Speaker 4: Unless there's a cut scene where the senior partners are
Speaker 4: like handsome boy, but it sure is stupid, which I
Speaker 4: would buy for this character, right, And so yeah, I
Speaker 4: remember watching it and finding it like really over the
Speaker 4: top and odd and revealing to me this interesting idea
Speaker 4: that to defend someone's constitutional rights is evil, which I
Speaker 4: think is a very interesting sort of like nineties tough
Speaker 4: on crime throughout an American pop culture. But what I
Speaker 4: also remember is that towards the end, you're like, what
Speaker 4: is happening? And I was so delighted to return to
Speaker 4: it for this show and have the same reaction, which
Speaker 4: is that in the last half hour or so, you're like,
Speaker 4: I feel like I'm having a stroke, but in the
Speaker 4: best way possible, at least for me.
Speaker 2: I mean, no, I had the same experience.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I really like, I don't know, Kaitlyn, what's your
Speaker 3: history with this movie?
Speaker 2: I had never seen it, nor did I really know
Speaker 2: anything about it. It was not really on my radar.
Speaker 2: I thought it was that movie The Devil's Own which
Speaker 2: also came out in ninety seven.
Speaker 3: What is that? I thought it was Meet Joe Black.
Speaker 2: Oh okay, so we're confusing it for different confused Brad
Speaker 2: Pitt movies.
Speaker 4: Wagest America had themes in nineteen ninety seven.
Speaker 2: It's true. But yeah, so I was like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 2: it's that Brad Pitt Harrison Ford movie. Wait, no, it's not.
Speaker 3: And I it was the Brad Pitt Anthony Hopkins movie, right,
Speaker 3: And Brad Pitt was almost in this movie.
Speaker 4: If you hear about the Devil, you just feel like
Speaker 4: it's gotta be Brad Pitt. Yeah, he probably would have
Speaker 4: had an easier time with the accent.
Speaker 2: Yes, because he's from Oklahoma. I think I wonder if
Speaker 2: one of the reasons he didn't do it is because
Speaker 2: he was just in seven a couple of years prime.
Speaker 2: And it also has very like doubly like sin vibes
Speaker 2: who knows.
Speaker 3: But yeah, vanity got to cut your own face off?
Speaker 2: Yes, my favorite sin.
Speaker 3: But yeah.
Speaker 2: So I didn't really know anything about this movie. And
Speaker 2: then I was like, oh, okay, the Devil's Advocate that
Speaker 2: really sounds like one of those stories where the writer
Speaker 2: came up with the title first and then reverse engineered
Speaker 2: a story around it.
Speaker 3: And then was incredibly literal. In fact, yes, I was
Speaker 3: shocked at how literal the title end being. I was like, Wow,
Speaker 3: this movie is engaging with its title in an unprecedented way.
Speaker 2: I feel like the only way it would have been
Speaker 2: more literal is if he was defending the devil himself,
Speaker 2: but in this case, he just works for the devil.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I don't know that's true. I mean, look, if
Speaker 3: you've already written the perfect novel, which is start phoning
Speaker 3: it in, why not. I'm not mad about it. You know.
Speaker 4: This movie also feels very similar in tone to the
Speaker 4: Rosemary's Baby sequel Son of Rosemary, which I encourage everyone
Speaker 4: to read, which just kind of like this starts off
Speaker 4: like kind of a bad thriller that you know where
Speaker 4: it's going, and then at the end is like, I
Speaker 4: don't know, It's like mister Toad's Wild's Ride. You're like, oh,
Speaker 4: we're literally going to hell. That's like, I like it.
Speaker 4: I didn't expect it.
Speaker 3: This this movie. Look, I thought I knew what was
Speaker 3: going to happen, and I was only right sometimes.
Speaker 2: Well, tell us, Jamie, what is your relationship with this movie?
Speaker 3: I thought it was me Joe Black. I thought I
Speaker 3: had seen it, and then I start to moment one.
Speaker 3: Once I saw the poster, I was like, I have
Speaker 3: not seen it. It's not me Joe Black. Who I
Speaker 3: think that's it. That's Brad Pitt is Death, not the Devil.
Speaker 3: I've never seen it.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean I haven't seen it. It was on
Speaker 4: planes for a while.
Speaker 3: We I don't know why we like owned it. We
Speaker 3: owned it. I remember because it had two video cassettes
Speaker 3: and oh I had two Titanic vibes. Again, that Titanic, right,
Speaker 3: Although this movie could have had two cassettes because it
Speaker 3: is simply too too long. Oh my god, it is.
Speaker 3: It's unforgivably long.
Speaker 4: This movie is as long as Good Fellas, yeah, which
Speaker 4: takes place over like fifteen years.
Speaker 3: Good Fellas, which iconically does not feel long. But that said,
Speaker 3: so I did not have any experience with this movie,
Speaker 3: you know, in terms of what our show is, why
Speaker 3: we come to this place. It fairs very badly.
Speaker 2: Oh yes, But.
Speaker 3: Did I enjoy myself? I sure did. I want to say, though,
Speaker 3: this is like we need to like put a this
Speaker 3: is the third Jeffrey Jones jump scare of this fiscal
Speaker 3: quarter on the Bechdel Cast. He really he.
Speaker 4: Worked his way into the nap of the eighties and nineties.
Speaker 3: You know, it's really vile. I mean it's like satisfying
Speaker 3: to see him die a horrible death, yes, But outside
Speaker 3: of that, I was like three times unbelievable because we
Speaker 3: recently covered Amadis and Sleepy Hollow. Yeah huh. In any case,
Speaker 3: did I like this fuckast movie? I did? I did?
Speaker 3: I It is not pro women? What is it saying?
Speaker 3: Kind of not very much, but it's hard to know.
Speaker 4: It's saying, would you like to watch al Pacino do
Speaker 4: a monologue for twelve minutes?
Speaker 3: And it's the answer.
Speaker 2: And just sam it up the entire time.
Speaker 3: That was the wild thing too, where it's like, I
Speaker 3: do think that al Pacino is Like, it's so weird
Speaker 3: to say that a performance that is like al Pacino
Speaker 3: shouting mostly is like him phoning it in, But it is.
Speaker 3: And that's so funny that there is someone who when
Speaker 3: he phones it in, he's screaming the whole time.
Speaker 4: It also reminds me of like the famous story about
Speaker 4: doctor strange love that. Kubrick was like, okays, Scott, just
Speaker 4: do one take where you're really over the top, just
Speaker 4: to warm up. We won't even use it. And then
Speaker 4: he was like, Hey, we're gonna use it.
Speaker 3: Really.
Speaker 4: The nice thing about al Pacino is that he doesn't
Speaker 4: need to be tricked. Tells you that performance on purpose.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, He's like, that's what I can't also that,
Speaker 3: I mean, I just all the behind the scenes with
Speaker 3: this movie are is very funny and bizarre, and just
Speaker 3: like we're just glad that Keanu found his way to
Speaker 3: the matrix. Indeed eventually, but the stories around this movie
Speaker 3: are very funny.
Speaker 2: He turned down Speed two to be in.
Speaker 3: This, to do this, He turned down eleven million dollars
Speaker 3: in Speed two to do this, and he took a
Speaker 3: pay cut so he could work with al Pacino. And
Speaker 3: then he did that accent and you're like, this is wild. Yeah,
Speaker 3: but I'm not this is not a Keanu slander podcast.
Speaker 3: But also critically, and then I'll stop, I think that
Speaker 3: this is also not a Keanu Reeves coddling podcast. That
Speaker 3: is a very I feel like we have over corrected.
Speaker 3: We have over corrected, all right, He's pretty good in
Speaker 3: this movie, he's pretty good. Well, it's okay to be
Speaker 3: pretty good at your job. I'm so sick of like
Speaker 3: adults infantilizing other wealthy adults. I'm like, what the fuck, Like, Okay,
Speaker 3: it's a fine performance. Charlie Starron is awesome. Her haircut
Speaker 3: is awful. I love that Keani's character, who is iconically
Speaker 3: named Kevin the Devil's Son, is named Kevin. That's a minion.
Speaker 3: That's not a guy, but but in the nineties, it's
Speaker 3: not an adult.
Speaker 4: It's a kid in a baseball cap who gets to
Speaker 4: adopted air but absolutely absolutely.
Speaker 3: But yeah, an adult Kevin who is just too much.
Speaker 3: But this feels ultimately like a like put together, Like
Speaker 3: I don't know. This movie is both completely off the
Speaker 3: rails and feels like very calibrated. I mean, that's why
Speaker 3: I'm excited to talk about like the context that this
Speaker 3: movie came out in with you, Sarah, because it feels
Speaker 3: very like pulling from multiple trends in nineties media, where
Speaker 3: it's like it's got the erotic thriller elements, it's got
Speaker 3: the legal thing, it's got the satanic panic thing. Like
Speaker 3: there's just a lot happening and they're like, what if
Speaker 3: we put it all in one movie.
Speaker 4: It's like the Trifle and Friends, where the recipe pige
Speaker 4: has got stuck together and you have like peas and
Speaker 4: jam and the same thing. And actually, I do want
Speaker 4: to tell you because after I watched this, I did
Speaker 4: what I frequently do, which is run to see what
Speaker 4: ROGERI Bert said about it. Okay, because he's my favorite killjoy.
Speaker 4: I just love him so much, And he said.
Speaker 3: I hope people say that about us too.
Speaker 4: He said the John Grisham stuff clashed with the Exorcist stuff. Still,
Speaker 4: I enjoyed Picturino, which is basically like I mean, yeah.
Speaker 3: Pretty pretty solid review. Overall, I enjoyed.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this movie made me want to rewatch Constantine, Oh,
Speaker 2: which is that Keanu Reeves movie where he I actually
Speaker 2: don't remember what it's about, but there's also something about
Speaker 2: It's like he's like a demon Holly or something.
Speaker 4: Yeah, he's got to kill It's one of those movies
Speaker 4: that if hear me a boy makes you watch in
Speaker 4: two thousand and seven.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yes or tn T this movie is I didn't
Speaker 3: think this until you said it, Sarah, but this movie
Speaker 3: is very t and T coded. Oh yeah, yeah.
Speaker 4: Well, and also because this was during the time when
Speaker 4: TNT was playing Law and Order for like four hours
Speaker 4: every afternoon, and I know because I was watching it
Speaker 4: whenever it was on, and so it was weird when
Speaker 4: they would be playing this because they're literally, I think,
Speaker 4: in one of the same courtrooms that Law an Order
Speaker 4: uses with the beautiful mural and then it's about the devil.
Speaker 4: And the nineties were like secu heyday for just like
Speaker 4: legal thrillers all have the same color palette, and they
Speaker 4: frequently did I mean, at least in like A Time
Speaker 4: to Kill, you have Charlie's there and being like, please
Speaker 4: don't defend the defendant in the wildly rigged racist case. Honey,
Speaker 4: we're getting snubbed at the country club or whatever, you know.
Speaker 4: And so I just like having this thing that felt
Speaker 4: like you kind of feel And that's kind of it's
Speaker 4: both what does and doesn't work about it for me
Speaker 4: that you kind of feel like you know where it's
Speaker 4: going and it does feel grishay and then it's.
Speaker 3: The devil, but then it's the devil, and yeah, Kevin
Speaker 3: is the Devil's sun and misses like my God does.
Speaker 3: Every character is just everyone's doing way too much, but
Speaker 3: I love it. I love it When Keanu I think
Speaker 3: that it's like either the line is misspoken, I miswatched it,
Speaker 3: or it was just a clunkily written line. Any of
Speaker 3: these things are possible. But when Charlie's Terarren's character gets
Speaker 3: the hair cut, she goes from curly like fun blonde
Speaker 3: like bouncy curls. She looks like Elizabeth Berkeley, and then
Speaker 3: yeah does and then al Pacino says, get a brown bob,
Speaker 3: Like You're like, what do you mean? Like I did
Speaker 3: not understand the motivation behind the brown boss.
Speaker 4: Like get your hair off your neck. The neck is
Speaker 4: the borderland and seduction, and it's like like stop and
Speaker 4: there's You're like, you know, whether he's the devil or
Speaker 4: a man who tells random women what to do with
Speaker 4: their hair at parties, he represents the same threat level.
Speaker 3: You know, yes, I will say he is great. I
Speaker 3: mean it's also whatever, al Pacino. There's plans to talk
Speaker 3: about with al Pacino too, but.
Speaker 4: So I might have been thinking of actually Jad but whatever.
Speaker 3: I think it stands. The point stands. The point stands. Yeah,
Speaker 3: But in any case, this line cracked me up because
Speaker 3: she's like, you.
Speaker 5: Don't like the haircut, Kevin, You don't like my haircut, Kevin,
Speaker 5: And then and then he goes, no, it's fine, and
Speaker 5: then the next line is it's traumatic.
Speaker 3: He's talking about something else, but it sounds like he's calling.
Speaker 2: Her haircut traumatic.
Speaker 3: Yes, I know, maybe laugh so much, but he is
Speaker 3: changing the subject, but the way Keanu is reading it
Speaker 3: makes it sound like he's still talking about the haircut. Yes,
Speaker 3: he cracked me up.
Speaker 4: Also, you feel like this was like the nineties were
Speaker 4: I feel like the nineties were so much worse in
Speaker 4: terms of an actor doing an accent for a role
Speaker 4: and then deciding scene by scene whether he was going
Speaker 4: to do it or possibly I don't know. I don't
Speaker 4: want to coddle Kanu too much, but you wonder if
Speaker 4: like the director is like, just just don't worry about
Speaker 4: it anymore, and then they edit it together so that
Speaker 4: it comes in and out like that.
Speaker 3: Right. Oh yes, Well when this is like not even
Speaker 3: the most famous example of Kano doing that, because wouldn't
Speaker 3: that be Dracula? Yes, yeah, like that's I think his
Speaker 3: most iconically like not so great well was I mean,
Speaker 3: I don't know if you've ever like acted in something,
Speaker 3: particularly like a film project, where you're like, you know not,
Speaker 3: you know whatever. It's kind of on you to keep
Speaker 3: the accent consistent. It's not an easy thing to do,
Speaker 3: but also you should do it.
Speaker 2: Yes, And on that note, let's take a quick break
Speaker 2: and then come back for the recap. Okay, we're back,
Speaker 2: and we will place a trigger warning here for many
Speaker 2: things kind of what, yes, you name it, child sexual abuse, rape, incest, suicide.
Speaker 2: This movie kind of runs the whole gambit.
Speaker 3: Of animal sacrifice.
Speaker 2: Yes, lots of violence and upsetting things.
Speaker 3: Kevinnvin.
Speaker 2: We open in a courtroom in Gainesville, Florida, where defense
Speaker 2: attorney Kevin Lomax not to be confused with Kevin le Mignon,
Speaker 2: thank you for saying that, Yes, played by Keanu Reeves,
Speaker 2: is defending a teacher who is on trial for sexually
Speaker 2: abusing his students.
Speaker 3: Heather Modarazzo too, Yes, and.
Speaker 2: This teacher seems very guilty, but Kevin, despite having some
Speaker 2: misgivings about his client, manages to turn things around and
Speaker 2: tries to expose the student who is testifying as a
Speaker 2: liar who made up this story about her teacher. And
Speaker 2: it seems like it's going to work and that he
Speaker 2: has won the case, and so he goes out to
Speaker 2: celebrate with his wife.
Speaker 4: Mary Anne, his fun, curly wife who does shots.
Speaker 3: Yes, she's still got curly hair. But the devil makes
Speaker 3: you get a bob.
Speaker 2: This is Charlie Sterren's character, of course. And while they're
Speaker 2: at the bar, Kevin is approached by an attorney from
Speaker 2: a law firm in New York City. Ever heard of it?
Speaker 2: That's Babylon, that's the Devil's playground, city of sin. And
Speaker 2: this firm is impressed with Kevin because he's never lost
Speaker 2: a case and they want his help with a jury selection. Now,
Speaker 2: Kevin's mother, Alice, doesn't think this is a good idea.
Speaker 2: She's super religious and she thinks that New York is
Speaker 2: full of godless heathens. But Kevin and his wife Mary
Speaker 2: Anne go to New York anyway, and he does a
Speaker 2: good job with the jury selection. So John Milton, Okay,
Speaker 2: Paradise Lost mud very subtle played by al Pacino.
Speaker 3: Can I be vulnerable and say I've never read Paradise Lost?
Speaker 3: Oh no, oh god, how many people have? You know?
Speaker 4: I'm very proud of anyone who's managed it.
Speaker 2: But okay, yeah, no, I've never read that. I have
Speaker 2: never read Dante's Inferno.
Speaker 3: Everything I know about Dante's Inferno is from Lemony Snicket books.
Speaker 4: That's pretty good, you know what you want to know?
Speaker 4: What I just learned is that Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, his
Speaker 4: wife died when her dress caught fire and she burned
Speaker 4: to a crisp, which happened to a lot of women
Speaker 4: in the mid nineteenth century because the fashion was for
Speaker 4: women to wear very very flammable clothing, and so they
Speaker 4: did because you know, it feels like a trick. That
Speaker 4: feels like a trick, like no, no, just wear layer
Speaker 4: is a very very flammable cotton in the air, it'll
Speaker 4: be great. And so after that he didn't really write
Speaker 4: much or any new poetry, and he devoted much of
Speaker 4: the rest of his life life to translating the Divine Comedy,
Speaker 4: which I just think is like, ohh such a relatable
Speaker 4: grief thing to do. You're like, nobody talk to me.
Speaker 4: I'm translating the Divine Comedy from Italian. It's going to
Speaker 4: take a while. I'm fine, everything's fine in here.
Speaker 3: I kind of like, yeah, that's both obviously, like that
Speaker 3: is such a traumatic thing. And also it's kind of
Speaker 3: dramatic of him to be like, oh, no, leave me alone.
Speaker 3: You know I love it. Yeah, we should. We should
Speaker 3: really bring back more dramatic grieving of that nature.
Speaker 4: We should have PSAs about how increasingly young men are
Speaker 4: translating epic Italian poems to deal with their emotions, and
Speaker 4: that's why we need to increase mental health access.
Speaker 3: It's the male it's the male translation epidemic. Everyone's talking
Speaker 3: about it. It's really bad.
Speaker 4: If they think everyone else is doing it, they're going
Speaker 4: to start translating poems. I swear to God it's true.
Speaker 4: This is how this is. This is our attempt to
Speaker 4: reverse the narrative. Yeah, they don't want you to translate
Speaker 4: classic Italian poems. Boys, It's the last thing they want
Speaker 4: you to do. The final rebellion.
Speaker 3: In any case.
Speaker 2: Anyway, John Milton played by al Pacino, is one of
Speaker 2: the senior partners at this law firm and definitely not.
Speaker 4: Like John Milton or Tanio.
Speaker 2: And he hires Kevin to work at the firm.
Speaker 3: Okay, this does actually now that we're talking about Kevin
Speaker 3: the Minion, this does follow Minion logic because Kevin does
Speaker 3: Minion rules. Minion serves the most evil master. What is
Speaker 3: Kevin doing? Wow, this is kind of like a Kevin thing.
Speaker 3: It is a minions. He is a minion and that's
Speaker 3: why his accent is so inconsistent. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, his first language is minionise.
Speaker 3: That which means he's he can speak just as many
Speaker 3: languages as the devil Well and Christabella Andreoli iconic Connie
Speaker 3: Nielsen character. Christabella Andreoli, do you like it on top?
Speaker 3: You're like, shut up everyone. Every time someone speaks in
Speaker 3: this movie, my reaction is shut up anyways.
Speaker 2: Uh So, John Milton gives Kevin a job as well
Speaker 2: as this like huge beautiful apartment in Manhattan. Then Kevin
Speaker 2: meets his colleagues, including this guy named Eddie Barzoon This
Speaker 2: is the Jeffrey Jones character. And Christabella Andreoli that's the
Speaker 2: Connie Nielsen character.
Speaker 3: Perfect and like many women professional women characters of the
Speaker 3: late twentieth century, we know she's really good at her job,
Speaker 3: but don't expect to see her doing it and not
Speaker 3: expected to become plot relevant. She's there to be naked eventually.
Speaker 2: Yes, because every time Kevin looks at her, he goes
Speaker 2: hubba hubba a wooga.
Speaker 4: It's true it's true, and then his heart bursts out
Speaker 4: of his chest.
Speaker 3: And yeah, he goes full wolf es. God, we're gonna
Speaker 3: when we get to the scene where she do you
Speaker 3: like it? On top of your profession? I mean you're like,
Speaker 3: oh oh oh lord, Yeah, Tony Gilroy, how are you doing, sir?
Speaker 2: Okay. So, Kevin's first assignment is the Moyes case, where
Speaker 2: this guy named Philippe Moyez played by Delroy Lindo.
Speaker 3: Yes, one of my favorite Chrea directors ever.
Speaker 2: Indeed, he is arrested for killing a goat in his
Speaker 2: basement and it seems like there's no way to win
Speaker 2: this case, but Kevin manages to win by saying that
Speaker 2: Moyees killed a goat as a religious practice, which he
Speaker 2: has the constitutional right to observe.
Speaker 3: Okay, here's my question with the whole Delroy Lindo thing,
Speaker 3: because this movie does extremely poorly on race, as we'll
Speaker 3: talk about. Yes, but I was like, genuinely, I was like, okay, So,
Speaker 3: once you find out al Pacino's the devil, are we
Speaker 3: to believe that Keanu Reeves should not have fought that
Speaker 3: religious freedom case? I was very confused.
Speaker 2: Let's talk about it later because I like I want
Speaker 2: to get into it with that plotline that could have
Speaker 2: been absolutely cut from the movie, and perhaps should have been,
Speaker 2: because it was cut like twenty minutes out of the runtime,
Speaker 2: which is desperately needed for this movie.
Speaker 3: Yes, ultimately it's like I'm always happy to see Delroy Lindo.
Speaker 3: But that was one of the many baffling moments in
Speaker 3: the truly yeah.
Speaker 2: But the point is that Kevin wins this unwinnable case,
Speaker 2: and so John Milton is like, Wow, Kevin, good job,
Speaker 2: you rock and you now. Meanwhile, at home, Marianne has
Speaker 2: been hanging out with her neighbor Jackie, played by Tamara Tooney,
Speaker 2: who's also married to one of the lawyers at the firm.
Speaker 2: I think that guy's name is Lehman.
Speaker 3: It is played by Reuben Santiago Hudson, who is an
Speaker 3: actor and a writer. He wrote the adaptation of ma
Speaker 3: Rainie's Black Bottom. Oh not kidding. Wow, he's just a
Speaker 3: very yeah, he's a very versatile guy anyways, which I
Speaker 3: think my friend Patrick was in as an extra really yeah,
Speaker 3: as a racist Irish man in Oh Pittsburgh. Mary got
Speaker 3: that track, Uh, well, shot up Patrick.
Speaker 2: But so Marianne is hanging out with Jackie, who is
Speaker 2: helping marian decorate her new apartment because women be doing
Speaker 2: woman things like decorating. And then Kevin and Marianne go
Speaker 2: to this big party in the building and this is
Speaker 2: where Marianne meets John Milton and he's like, Wow, you're beautiful,
Speaker 2: but your hair, well it looks like shit and you
Speaker 2: should change everything about it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the whole the whole neck thing.
Speaker 2: Right exactly. Meanwhile, Kevin is flirting with Christabella.
Speaker 3: And she's flirting right back. Bouschemy tests this you can't
Speaker 3: you care? Oh my god? Do you like it on top? Kevin?
Speaker 2: Like, and then he's like, excuse me?
Speaker 3: Is your wife a Jedi's woman? Kevin? I better get
Speaker 3: out of here. You're like just the most written by
Speaker 3: man woman ever. Yeah, but it felt like it for me,
Speaker 3: it transcended and became camp. Do you like it on top? Kevin?
Speaker 2: This is an extremely campy movie. It's taking itself very seriously.
Speaker 2: But the camp is that I'm qualifiers true.
Speaker 4: I mean that's the thing about The Devil, right, is that, like,
Speaker 4: you can't really be dead serious about Devil stuff.
Speaker 2: The Devil is camp.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it is a campy, little guy.
Speaker 4: I'm just look at that outfit for a start, what
Speaker 4: is that pitchwork for. It's for poking people in the butt.
Speaker 4: It's true, he's a kinky little guy. This movie made
Speaker 4: me think of Angel Heart, which is, like, I don't know,
Speaker 4: to me, a similarly campy devil movie where it's like
Speaker 4: supposed to be a twist that it's the devil, but
Speaker 4: you're like, this has clearly been the devil the entire time,
Speaker 4: and like, you know, with like great style. Is directed
Speaker 4: by Ellen Parker, but where like if you had to
Speaker 4: come up with the point of it, you would have
Speaker 4: no idea what to say. Yeah, And they both have
Speaker 4: like over the top dramatic endings at opposite ends of
Speaker 4: the twelve year old boy spectrum, which I'm excited to
Speaker 4: talk about when we get there.
Speaker 3: Oh okay, yeah, because ultimately the I mean as close
Speaker 3: it's trying to say something about free will, but I
Speaker 3: think it is making a very simple and should be
Speaker 3: you know, followed moral, which is do not legally defend
Speaker 3: and a super criminals, yeah, like a child's sex abuser.
Speaker 3: And you're like, well, all right, got it.
Speaker 4: I agree, And you know, for most people who don't
Speaker 4: have that job in the audience. You're like, already not
Speaker 4: doing that.
Speaker 3: I love it. Yeah, that's true. You're like, I did it.
Speaker 4: And then if that is your job, I have to
Speaker 4: get out a postcard and write to whatever studio made this.
Speaker 2: It's true. Okay. So they're at this party and then
Speaker 2: eventually Milton summons Kevin and then a couple of the
Speaker 2: other attorneys to his penthouse apartment, which is just this
Speaker 2: like big room. There's no bedroom, there's no bed, there's
Speaker 2: a kitchen.
Speaker 4: He's an anti Samantha Jones. She's all bedroom, he's no bedroom.
Speaker 3: I think this is a later scene in the same space,
Speaker 3: but that whole like where does he sleep? We don't
Speaker 3: know where does he fuck everywhere?
Speaker 2: You're like, no, that is the scene.
Speaker 3: Oh it is okay, that is Yeah, it's awesome.
Speaker 4: Also Edward Collen coated except Edward Collin fucts nowhere famously.
Speaker 3: The thing is, I want that same line read from
Speaker 3: Robert Patt's no way.
Speaker 2: Oh that's kind of the accent he's doing in Mickey seventeen.
Speaker 2: So I feel like he could pull it out.
Speaker 3: It is, Yeah, he can do it.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: In any case, Milton gives Kevin a new case to
Speaker 2: work on this big time real estate developer named Alexander Cullen. Okay, Collin, speak.
Speaker 3: Of the devil, Alexander Cullen. Unfortunately, the Alexander Collin penthouse
Speaker 3: is Donald Trump's penthouse in New York.
Speaker 4: Really is, Yeah, except it's like what if Donald Trump
Speaker 4: was the dad from Poultergeist? And you're like, at this point,
Speaker 4: I'll take it.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Also, Donald Trump's name is invoked in this movie at
Speaker 2: some point where they're at a party and someone says
Speaker 2: Donald Trump was supposed to be here, but he had
Speaker 2: a business emergency, and you're like, oh.
Speaker 3: My god, I mean I'm sure that that was like
Speaker 3: the condition for using the apartment or something like you
Speaker 3: need to bring me up in a way that makes
Speaker 3: just any.
Speaker 4: Reply that I have business emergencies and not going to
Speaker 4: sex offender Island emergencies.
Speaker 3: Yes, somehow, our fascist president does weasele his way into
Speaker 3: this movie that at least has the decency to be
Speaker 3: about the devil.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, not take up ahead of ourselves, but
Speaker 4: this this movie does imply something about the craigten Nelson
Speaker 4: character that you kind of feel like people in the
Speaker 4: know probably knew about Trump in the nineties too interesting.
Speaker 2: Perhaps, yeah, I believe it. We'll clarify that shortly. But
Speaker 2: what we know about Alexander Cullen now is that he
Speaker 2: has been charged with murdering three people, including his wife,
Speaker 2: and it's going to be this big, very public case.
Speaker 2: But Kevin is up to the challenge.
Speaker 3: Go Kevin, lead counsel. Kevin, I feel fine, just honestly,
Speaker 3: you need to change your name like I am. You
Speaker 3: could be the best layer in the world. I'm not
Speaker 3: working with Kevin. Come on, not for a murder trial,
Speaker 3: right My life is on the line. Leave Kevin out
Speaker 3: of it.
Speaker 2: So then Kevin meets with this Alexander Cullen played by
Speaker 2: Craig t Nelson, And what's his thing again? I know
Speaker 2: that he has like horrible politics. I know that he's
Speaker 2: like not a good person. I like it's hard to
Speaker 2: keep tracked t Nelson. I know very little about me too.
Speaker 4: I miss Craig tel.
Speaker 2: I think we might have brought him up on the
Speaker 2: podcast before. I don't remember it, but any I think
Speaker 2: he's he's not a great guy anyway. He's not thrilled
Speaker 2: with Kevin taking the case, but he doesn't have much
Speaker 2: of a choice. Meanwhile, mary Anne, who now has a
Speaker 2: completely different haircut and hair color, goes shopping with her
Speaker 2: friend Jackie, and then this weird thing happens where Jackie's like,
Speaker 2: look at my titties. Are they fake? Are they real?
Speaker 2: Touch them, feel them? And then Marianne sees Jackie's face
Speaker 2: and body briefly transform into something that looks demonic.
Speaker 3: Looks like bad cgi.
Speaker 4: There's nothing more satanic than girls touching each other's boobs famously.
Speaker 3: Like right away, you're like, got it, got I see
Speaker 3: the go.
Speaker 4: Ask Alice school of Satanism.
Speaker 3: Chraigtie Nelson, from what I can tell, is your sort
Speaker 3: of garden variety, like right leaning libertarian, dork ass loser,
Speaker 3: but I do this. His Wikipedia page is fascinating because
Speaker 3: I've noticed this as like an editorial thing. I'm like,
Speaker 3: I'm sure it's like his reps doing it or something.
Speaker 3: But in the personal life section, whenever someone is truly
Speaker 3: like a piece of shit, people will edit it to
Speaker 3: end it on something innocuous in the hopes that you're scanning.
Speaker 3: Because it's like he endorsed John McCain, He was a
Speaker 3: regular guest on and Beck and then it ends on
Speaker 3: Nelson is also a lifelong Green Bay Packers fan, and
Speaker 3: you're like, you can't fool me. Yeah, I saw Glenn
Speaker 3: Beck like whatever, But.
Speaker 4: You're supposed to go about your day and the rest
Speaker 4: of your life thinking Craig T. Nelson, go pack go
Speaker 4: Yeah exactly.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Okay. So then after mary Anne witnesses this really
Speaker 2: bizarre thing with her friend Jackie, she keeping is stressfulling
Speaker 2: and yes, I also turned into a demon when I shop. Yeah,
Speaker 2: if a three way mirror is present, absolutely indeed.
Speaker 3: And my hot friends are undressing in front of me,
Speaker 3: and I'm feeling insecure about my bob. Come on.
Speaker 2: So she freaks out and she tells Kevin that things
Speaker 2: are weird and that actually she hates this apartment and
Speaker 2: she doesn't like that he's never home anymore because he's
Speaker 2: so busy working all the time. And Kevin does not
Speaker 2: take this well. He's furious. He's screaming at her, but
Speaker 2: then she starts crying, so he consoles her and it
Speaker 2: gets horny. Let's yeah, the line read there is hilarious.
Speaker 2: They start fucking on the floor, but as they're having sex,
Speaker 2: he keeps seeing Christabella instead of mary Anne, and Marianne
Speaker 2: can tell something is wrong and that he's not fully present.
Speaker 2: Then we cut away. Kevin's mother, Alice comes into town
Speaker 2: for a visit and they run into Milton in the elevator,
Speaker 2: and she seems very uncomfortable around Milton. Is it because
Speaker 2: he's the devil? I don't know, or is it.
Speaker 3: Because they had a thing back in the day.
Speaker 2: We'll find out. But another weird thing happens on the
Speaker 2: subway where Milton and Kevin are riding the subway for
Speaker 2: some reason. I don't no, they have so much money,
Speaker 2: why aren't they taking like private cars?
Speaker 4: Because he's the devil and he likes to be underground.
Speaker 3: Yes, well that is I read in the there was
Speaker 3: a Joel Schumacher version of this movie which was supposed
Speaker 3: to happen, which actually, my god, I can't believe it didn't. Right,
Speaker 3: there's already a lot of nipples in this movie. But
Speaker 3: here's the thing. There could have been more. There could
Speaker 3: have been more, but in the Joel Schumacher version, I
Speaker 3: think that that's probably left over. Because the Joel Schumacher
Speaker 3: version is it's like Dante's six Circles of Hell are
Speaker 3: going deeper and deeper into the subway system, which is
Speaker 3: so cute, which is a cool like visual idea, but
Speaker 3: I think that like what happened that didn't happen. And
Speaker 3: then there's just a random scene where these like wealthy
Speaker 3: characters who are classist are on the subway.
Speaker 4: For some reason, I wonder how much of Joel Schumacher's
Speaker 4: The Devil's Advocate ended up in Batman and Robin oh
Speaker 4: Never now.
Speaker 3: Makes you think rp to the Weirdest Man effort.
Speaker 2: But anyway, this strange thing happens on the subway where
Speaker 2: Milton tells this man that his girlfriend is currently cheating
Speaker 2: on him, and he seems to know a bunch of details,
Speaker 2: almost as if Milton is omniscient, almost like he's the devil.
Speaker 4: That's why America's Southern lawyer should learn Spanish. Gave him
Speaker 4: time on this one.
Speaker 2: Yes, also okay, and I can't claim to be an
Speaker 2: expert or even proficient in Spanish, but I know enough
Speaker 2: to know that al Pacino was not doing a very
Speaker 2: good job and he's it seems like he's speaking Spanish
Speaker 2: with an Italian accent, because I think al Pacino does
Speaker 2: know Italian.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, the degree to which he is phoning it
Speaker 3: in at volume one thousand. Is that's interesting because I
Speaker 3: was I was going to ask you. I was like,
Speaker 3: is it even close?
Speaker 2: It's it's pretty rough and it's clear because it keeps
Speaker 2: cutting away from him so you're not actually see him.
Speaker 2: So I think it's a lot of it is a
Speaker 2: dr and I think lines were probably like said to
Speaker 2: him one sentence at a time, and he's still blowing it.
Speaker 3: But there's a lot of there's a lot of ADR
Speaker 3: in this movie. My favorite ADR comes from it's misogynous ADR.
Speaker 3: It's when they move into the three bedroom apartment and
Speaker 3: they add the line three bedrooms. You know what that
Speaker 3: means a.
Speaker 6: Baby, Like you don't see her, you don't see her
Speaker 6: mug move that whole time. I was like, they absolutely
Speaker 6: added that, Like they're like, oh no, we never established
Speaker 6: that this character's only goal in life is to have
Speaker 6: Kyanta Reeve's baby, no matter how much he hates her.
Speaker 3: You know what that means?
Speaker 4: A baby seamless, no perfect, And then more weird things
Speaker 4: continue to happen at home.
Speaker 2: Marianne sees and speaking of babies, she sees a random
Speaker 2: baby in the apartment.
Speaker 3: And takes it in stride, takes it really in stride.
Speaker 3: She says, Hi, baby, the.
Speaker 2: Baby, where's your mummy. You're like, oh, she is cool
Speaker 2: as a cucumber about it until she sees what the
Speaker 2: baby is playing with, which are entrails, and then she's like,
Speaker 2: oh no, And then it seems like maybe Marianne is
Speaker 2: having a miscarriage. We don't know if it was a
Speaker 2: dream or if it was real. Marianne feels like she's
Speaker 2: losing her grip on reality. And again, Kevin is not
Speaker 2: handling this well. He's not listening to her. He is
Speaker 2: dismissing her, He's constantly gaslighting her.
Speaker 4: He's doing about as well as any husband named Kevin anyway.
Speaker 3: And it's a weird Keano performance. So the in my opinion,
Speaker 3: the like the reactions feel weird and outsized even for
Speaker 3: what he's doing, where it's like you're like, too loud,
Speaker 3: too loud, what's going on?
Speaker 2: Yes, I love this, boovie.
Speaker 3: It sucks.
Speaker 4: I keep imagining him saying to Charlie Is at some
Speaker 4: point like, honey, let's let's go to Los Angeles and
Speaker 4: I can infiltrate surf crime communities.
Speaker 3: Yeah was it?
Speaker 2: I guess this was this was after point break, right.
Speaker 4: Yeah, but you know it's all a big soup in
Speaker 4: my head.
Speaker 1: Sure.
Speaker 3: Yeah, like his like post Speed but pre Matrix era. Yeah,
Speaker 3: a couple of rough ones. Yeah, because he is.
Speaker 4: The kind of actor where you feel like people were
Speaker 4: trying to figure out what roles he made sense in
Speaker 4: and this like I don't know if I feel like
Speaker 4: Tom Cruise would make more sense total role. I realized that, Yeah,
Speaker 4: recommending more Tom Cruise movies is a loaded thing to say.
Speaker 4: But I mean, but no, he's not the right Catholic intensity.
Speaker 2: You're absolutely right, Like I love Keanu, but I think
Speaker 2: he is more often than not horribly miscast. He's definitely
Speaker 2: almost never put in the right role, and you know,
Speaker 2: I'm not unhappy to see it necessarily, but.
Speaker 3: Especially in like the nineties, where it's like they just
Speaker 3: hadn't quite figured out where he because he's he's great
Speaker 3: in the right role, right in the wrong role. And
Speaker 3: he always fully commits too, which I feel like, unfortunately
Speaker 3: like kind of works against him sometimes because he's fully
Speaker 3: committing to like a weird choice, right, because you're like.
Speaker 2: You can tell how hard he's trying, but is maybe
Speaker 2: not doing a very good job sometimes. Allah his performance
Speaker 2: in Dracula, I didn't think.
Speaker 3: That he was because I was reading there like this
Speaker 3: is a bad key out of performance. I'm like, I
Speaker 3: didn't think it was like bad. It just didn't think
Speaker 3: it was good. It's not right.
Speaker 2: It's just not right for him.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's also like it feels like it's not a
Speaker 4: protagonist role that you really have that much to do with,
Speaker 4: because like, isn't he gets mostly reacting to Steph.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's like, I mean like al Pacino has like
Speaker 3: I mean, al Pacino is not miscast in this role,
Speaker 3: even though apparently he turned down this role three three
Speaker 3: different times because he was like it's too like trite,
Speaker 3: which he's right about, but I just I guess the
Speaker 3: he's he was like this is too and too trite,
Speaker 3: which makes sense because he is a really good actor,
Speaker 3: and that is true. But I guess they just said
Speaker 3: the right number, and he's like, all right, I'll do it.
Speaker 3: The theme of the movie everywhere goodness. Okay.
Speaker 2: So Kevin meanwhile, is working on this murder case with
Speaker 2: that Cullen guy who says he has an alibi, which
Speaker 2: is that he's been having an affair with his assistant
Speaker 2: and he was with her the night the murders happened,
Speaker 2: but Milton is considering taking Kevin off of this case
Speaker 2: because he sees how it's affecting Kevin and Marianne's marriage.
Speaker 2: But Kevin is like, no, I can have it all.
Speaker 3: It's a test. It's a test, and he passes.
Speaker 2: And he passes and he fails.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's well for mary Anne, he feels. But I
Speaker 3: guess I interpreted that as like the Devil's like giving
Speaker 3: him a chance to do the right thing. And then
Speaker 3: he's like, no, I won't. Yeah, yeah, it's the whole
Speaker 3: free will Yeah, semi theme. Got is it a theme
Speaker 3: or is it guess something people mention a lot. It's
Speaker 3: I don't know that the free will thing towards the end.
Speaker 3: Yeah again. One of the many like weirdly executed, kind
Speaker 3: of iconic, campy things this movie does is like state
Speaker 3: the intended theme at the very end of the movie
Speaker 3: so loudly, how do you like them free wills?
Speaker 7: You're like, oh, I always like that, Yeah, it is fun.
Speaker 7: You're like, okay, so this movie is also insecure about
Speaker 7: what it's doing for sure.
Speaker 2: Then something happens with the Eddie Barzoon character, where what
Speaker 2: a name you know, yeah, he thinks Kevin is trying
Speaker 2: to take his job, and he's been doing some shady
Speaker 2: stuff and shredding a lot of doc in redding.
Speaker 3: Yes, not point break kind of shredding.
Speaker 4: Unfortunately he's getting Yeah, he's getting the shreddings. It feels
Speaker 4: like he's got a lot of refice to get through.
Speaker 2: Yes, And because of all of that question Mark Milton
Speaker 2: seems to send out some demons to kill Eddie Barzoon.
Speaker 4: This guy is cleverly as joggers, which you know, what's
Speaker 4: the difference Franklin.
Speaker 2: First as joggers, but then they kind of transform.
Speaker 3: In a way that's both like the lesson behind that one.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, we can talk more about that, but either way,
Speaker 2: Barzoon dies, which Marianne sees from her window and she
Speaker 2: has a breakdown. So Kevin rushes to be with her,
Speaker 2: but not before he wins the Cullen case. Don't you worry,
Speaker 2: because he never loses. And he goes to be with Marianne,
Speaker 2: who tells Kevin that Milton came into their home and
Speaker 2: raped her, and Kevin's like, I don't believe you. That's
Speaker 2: impossible because I was with him all day. So Kevin
Speaker 2: takes Marianne to the hospital for like psychiatric intervention. He
Speaker 2: basically like has her committed, because are the.
Speaker 4: Full Virginia Manson and Candy Man treatment where you get
Speaker 4: strapped to a table and they wheel you away. I'm
Speaker 4: your useless husband is like, goodbye.
Speaker 3: Honey, I'm gonna give you a little kiss. Okay, goodbye.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and then she's saying, we have blood money on
Speaker 2: our hands. All the times that you one cases defending
Speaker 2: guilty clients, we are reaping the consequences of that now.
Speaker 2: And Kevin eventually realizes she's right, But it also he
Speaker 2: has to see a whole bunch of other things to
Speaker 2: fully believe it, such as and I was unclear exactly
Speaker 2: what was happening here, but I think the implication is
Speaker 2: that he sees Culin with Cullen's stepdaughter, who he has
Speaker 2: been sexually abusing.
Speaker 3: Yeah, oh, yeah, I missed that.
Speaker 2: It's super unclear. Oh, because we don't really see we
Speaker 2: don't get like a good look really at any point
Speaker 2: of the stepdaughter.
Speaker 4: But then they're together at Jeffrey Jones's funeral, which is
Speaker 4: like the ideal place for plot development. And yeah, because
Speaker 4: there's this whole thing where craigten Nelson has been making
Speaker 4: this big show about like I just care about my stepdaughter.
Speaker 4: I'm not allowed to see my stepdaughter anymore, and these
Speaker 4: murder charges are bogus and my big secret is that
Speaker 4: I was having an affair with another consenting adult.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's the ticket.
Speaker 4: And I think it's that thing again of like Canna
Speaker 4: Reeves being like, wow, maybe I am defending an innocent
Speaker 4: client at this murder trial, which again is like, you're
Speaker 4: not going to make a living in criminal defense if
Speaker 4: you insist on having innocent clients, right you can. I
Speaker 4: feel like it makes more sense to focus on the
Speaker 4: sense of betrayal of like, oh, I thought I had
Speaker 4: a good understanding of who this person was morally and
Speaker 4: then it turns out that I completely mischecked them, and
Speaker 4: I feel like an idiot and like I didn't understand
Speaker 4: the terms of the bargain that I was making. Because
Speaker 4: then he gets acquitted and we see him like inappropriately
Speaker 4: touching his stepdaughter's back at Jeffrey Jones's funeral appropriately just right.
Speaker 3: Just can't even get into it. Yeah, that hadn't even
Speaker 3: really like connected for you, but you're totally right of
Speaker 3: like this character is not convincingly competent, like you don't
Speaker 3: believe he's the best lawyer, and it got.
Speaker 4: The football scholarship to law school, just like in Point Break.
Speaker 3: Well, it's like it helps his character development of like
Speaker 3: becoming a bad person if he knows and doesn't care, right,
Speaker 3: And it's not like the movie. The way that the
Speaker 3: movie wants him to be likable is like executed so
Speaker 3: weirdly because clearly the movie doesn't care if we think
Speaker 3: he's a good partner or not. He's never not screaming
Speaker 3: at Charlie's, so you're just like it's just weird.
Speaker 4: Yeah, right, it feels like they wrote all the other
Speaker 4: characters and then just had him sort of do what
Speaker 4: he had to do to make the scenes make sense. Right. Yeah,
Speaker 4: It's like he has to start off as someone who
Speaker 4: has no idea how to do his job properly in
Speaker 4: order to continue to be surprised, you know, because like, Yeah.
Speaker 3: Another Kanu line read that's going to be rattling around
Speaker 3: my head for years is when he was again his
Speaker 3: character who's a piece of shit, one might say the
Speaker 3: whole movie, Yeah, it is yelling at critinals and Secretary says,
Speaker 3: you've been polishing his knob for months and you don't
Speaker 3: know if he has foreskin. I was like, I don't
Speaker 3: don't yell foreskin at a lady. I'll say that even
Speaker 3: if you're prepping.
Speaker 4: A witness, write it on an index card and slide
Speaker 4: it across the table like it's a really high salary
Speaker 4: or something.
Speaker 3: That was just like such an unpleasant line.
Speaker 2: To hear, know, old writing choices.
Speaker 3: I also think that.
Speaker 4: In the supernatural vein this movie and Liar Liar, I
Speaker 4: think are both inspired by the O. J. Simpson Trial.
Speaker 4: It's one of my analyses, right because like we have
Speaker 4: this moment of like America feeling like a bit scandalized
Speaker 4: at criminal law and sort of what is maybe legally
Speaker 4: permissible but not morally permissible when you're mounting a defense,
Speaker 4: and that this movie and Liar Liar and Primal Fear,
Speaker 4: as I've mentioned before, but Liar Liar is a more
Speaker 4: fun comparison or about like what if you were a
Speaker 4: really good defense lawyer but then something supernatural happened, And
Speaker 4: it's also about appreciating your partner more. I guess, yeah, wow,
Speaker 4: I've never seen Liar Liar. Somehow, it's very fun it's
Speaker 4: Jim Carrey is a lawyer. He's having fun. I like,
Speaker 4: I like Jim Carrey. I realized that not everyone can
Speaker 4: handle I think I would like uncut Carrie.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so it's fun. It's also got like I know.
Speaker 4: I've made this joke somewhere before, but who cares. It's
Speaker 4: like one of those like light nineties comedies that just
Speaker 4: revealing what the economy was like back then. Has like
Speaker 4: a beautiful orchestral score that makes me imacgin like a
Speaker 4: coronette player in the bathroom, like honey, honey, I'm learning
Speaker 4: my part for a liar. Liar Honey.
Speaker 2: I've seen that movie probably twenty times between the ages
Speaker 2: of like eleven and twelve and then never again.
Speaker 4: So I bet you could recite it like a massa.
Speaker 3: I bet.
Speaker 2: I bet.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we should do. We should do like a maybe
Speaker 3: that's a Patreon theme or something like a lawyer brewery
Speaker 3: because it is interesting, like what whatever I mean? I know, Sarah,
Speaker 3: that's like so much of what your show is about,
Speaker 3: but like what our you know, pop culture perception of
Speaker 3: justice is depending on the given moment, and yeah, like
Speaker 3: this it feels almost like weird and Pollyanna ish for
Speaker 3: what this movie suggests, which is that the devil would
Speaker 3: have to intervene for a lawyer to act in bad faith,
Speaker 3: which is like.
Speaker 4: Great, yeah, And it's also it's interesting because it's like
Speaker 4: there are so many moments where it flirts with coherence, right,
Speaker 4: and like like this firm reminds me of like Wolfram
Speaker 4: and Heart from Angel, where they're like a law firm
Speaker 4: that very unsubtly, like we learn, is you know, up
Speaker 4: to all kinds of like shady, very high level international
Speaker 4: stuff that's all about like perpetuating wars and you know,
Speaker 4: keeping the working class down and doing like the real
Speaker 4: big corporate evil that I think is very different than
Speaker 4: just like being any defense lawyer protecting the rights of
Speaker 4: individuals in a trial setting. But it's like, but everyone
Speaker 4: hates successful criminal defense lawyers so much in nineteen ninety
Speaker 4: seven that the two kind of get like steamrolled together
Speaker 4: at a certain point.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Right, Well, because on Kevin's journey of realizing, not that
Speaker 2: maybe journey maybe Ken, we have to talk about Kevin
Speaker 2: or whatever that movie's called.
Speaker 3: We literally have to talk about Kevin. Wow, wow, wow,
Speaker 3: oh no, it's come to this.
Speaker 2: He's seeing all of this evidence that maybe the law
Speaker 2: firm he works for is demonic, because then some like
Speaker 2: I don't know if this is like an attorney general
Speaker 2: or something. But he goes up to Kevin and he's like,
Speaker 2: by the way, your law firm is tied up in
Speaker 2: arms dealing and chemical weapons and money laundering and all
Speaker 2: this stuff. And so rather than Kevin, you know, just
Speaker 2: listening to his wife and believing her, he's like, well,
Speaker 2: now I have a sneaking suspicion that maybe where I
Speaker 2: work is evil.
Speaker 4: A guy from the Justice Department or whatever came and
Speaker 4: bothered me. So yeah, he set me straight, and so
Speaker 4: now I believe it.
Speaker 3: Which I do think is how a lot of men behave.
Speaker 3: But it makes it harder to believe the character has
Speaker 3: grown and changed because of how late in the movie
Speaker 3: that happened.
Speaker 2: Because he never actually believes his wife. No, you just
Speaker 2: know he gets the information elsewhere.
Speaker 3: And he also iconically barely reacts when he's like no,
Speaker 3: I mean he reacts when she dies, but then it
Speaker 3: sort of is like for two seconds anyway, and then anyways, WHOA.
Speaker 4: That was weird, Like, well, I gotta be back in
Speaker 4: court in twenty so I'll react.
Speaker 3: Later in some ways it ends up working out for
Speaker 3: my schedule.
Speaker 2: You're like, oh, well, okay, So what happens next is
Speaker 2: that at the hospital, Marianne takes her own life, and
Speaker 2: while that's happening, Kevin's mother, who's back in town, reveals
Speaker 2: this big secret that she has met John Milton many
Speaker 2: years before and actually he's Kevin's father.
Speaker 3: That twist was for still added. That twist is not
Speaker 3: in the original and the source of material, like most
Speaker 3: of the ending, is added for the movie. But I
Speaker 3: also it's interesting as as goofy as it is. I
Speaker 3: was sort of like, wait, Kevin's mom is fucking.
Speaker 2: And she's fucking the devil.
Speaker 3: Kevin's mom had sex when the Devil.
Speaker 4: I feel like we're speeding past that part.
Speaker 3: Like I want I wanted to cut away. I wanted
Speaker 3: to cut away with the Marvelettes playing in the background.
Speaker 2: Well, it's also not super clear how consensual that interaction
Speaker 2: might have been.
Speaker 4: For my own sanity, I would like to think that
Speaker 4: it was. But yeah, it's a very.
Speaker 3: I'm gonna I'm gonna for also for the sake of
Speaker 3: my own brain, to say that it was consensual, because
Speaker 3: then it can still be funny but also, I mean
Speaker 3: that is like how and again you're like, okay, he's
Speaker 3: the devil, but how freely sexual assault and rape is
Speaker 3: just like tossed around as a plot point in this movie.
Speaker 4: You're just like yeah, yeah, And it's like the nineties
Speaker 4: model of ladies Man, where it's like, well, he was
Speaker 4: constantly surrounded by a vulnerable young woman who he was
Speaker 4: taking advantage of, so ladies man, and it's like that's right.
Speaker 4: It's like the opposite of that. It's like a man
Speaker 4: who's the enemy of all ladies, right.
Speaker 3: Yes, yeah, I'm like Keanu Reeves, who is a real
Speaker 3: ladies man.
Speaker 2: The ladies love him.
Speaker 4: It's true, lady, Yeah, he's a fine wine.
Speaker 3: It's true.
Speaker 2: So Kevin learns that John Milton is his father. He's
Speaker 2: also piecing together that Milton is the devil, so he
Speaker 2: goes to confront Milton.
Speaker 3: It's going through a lot again, a very funny reaction
Speaker 3: from Keanu where he's like oh what, like he seems
Speaker 3: like kind of like more annoyed than shocked, where he's like, stop,
Speaker 3: don't tell me this today on the day of my
Speaker 3: wife's tragic passing. Stop, Like he's so weird.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And so he goes to Milton, and his suspicions
Speaker 2: that Milton is the Devil are confirmed, which means that
Speaker 2: Kevin is half devil or something like Spock. Yeah yeah,
Speaker 2: and now Kevin has to reconcile his past choices and
Speaker 2: behavior because Kevin has acted of his own free will.
Speaker 2: Milton explains that as the devil, he simply sets the stage,
Speaker 2: but he doesn't make anyone do anything. So Kevin making
Speaker 2: a shitload of money defending sex criminals and murderers, and
Speaker 2: Kevin neglecting his wife, all of that was his own doing,
Speaker 2: and Kevin has to like sort through.
Speaker 3: That, which I think is in some ways you could
Speaker 3: view that as the twist of the movie, being that
Speaker 3: men are accountable for their actions. And he's like, what not, Yeah,
Speaker 3: that is like pretty good. I think that's as coherent
Speaker 3: as this thing gets. I do like that. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 3: it's fun.
Speaker 2: And then Christabella shows up. She is Kevin's half sister
Speaker 2: because Milton is also her father.
Speaker 3: They also added this for the movie, and you're like,
Speaker 3: was that necessary?
Speaker 4: But like, we haven't had enough non assault related nudity, so.
Speaker 3: Let's and let's just throw incest into the conversation. While
Speaker 3: we're at it precisely.
Speaker 4: Yeah, this is the point where if you're editing it
Speaker 4: down for TNT, I do not feel jealous of your job.
Speaker 3: Right now, the movie just abruptly stops, like we don't
Speaker 3: know what to do.
Speaker 4: We don't know what to do, but it's not found right.
Speaker 2: Because after Cristabella shows up, Milton wants Kevin to in
Speaker 2: gregnate her so as to conceive the Antichrist.
Speaker 4: But also as like the children of the Devil, aren't
Speaker 4: they the Antichrist? And do they come together to make
Speaker 4: a whole Antichrist? Or is it an anti Antichrist? Is
Speaker 4: it an antipasto? It's very confusing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, do they cancel each other out? If they have
Speaker 2: sex and have a baby. Is it just the second
Speaker 2: coming of Christ?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 4: What if they accidentally make Jesus?
Speaker 3: Yeah. I was also a little unclear on why it
Speaker 3: was so urgent to do it right at that moment,
Speaker 3: not that that is like the biggest even in the
Speaker 3: top ten issues going on in this scene, but I
Speaker 3: was like, okay, okay, so it is all of these disgusting,
Speaker 3: horrible things, but couldn't it be next week?
Speaker 4: Like it's all tied with the political situation in Hong Kong.
Speaker 3: You know it's well he also I the just whatever,
Speaker 3: the ham fistedness of the end, which is I like,
Speaker 3: it is super campy and goofy. But when he's like
Speaker 3: the twentieth century that never was on fire in the
Speaker 3: twentieth century, You're like, yeah, whatever.
Speaker 4: Okay, great, sure, I would like I think you should
Speaker 4: do a Patreon feature. That's just you reciting Alpachino's monologues
Speaker 4: from the end of this movie.
Speaker 7: He talks so much in this last scene he will
Speaker 7: not shut up.
Speaker 3: I like it, really he needs a power point. Really,
Speaker 3: he kind of is giving a ted talk at the
Speaker 3: end about the devil's behavior throughout the twentieth century. You're like, what,
Speaker 3: and which brings me to my conclusion. You have to
Speaker 3: have sex with your sister right now to conceive the Antichrist.
Speaker 2: And Kevin is acting like he's about to do that,
Speaker 2: but instead he shoots.
Speaker 4: Himself because the devil is omniscient but not telepathic evidently,
Speaker 4: or maybe it doesn't work on your own kids. If
Speaker 4: they had made this into a show, we would have
Speaker 4: gotten more lore. It would have been fun.
Speaker 3: But oh well, and the very flimsy because it's like,
Speaker 3: it feels like the movie just has to end at
Speaker 3: this point because there's been too many plot points introduced.
Speaker 3: They're like, we gotta stop, we gotta stop. But Keanu,
Speaker 3: being like justifying willingly participating in ancestual assault, He's like, well,
Speaker 3: that's where a crush on you. No, but it for
Speaker 3: he's about to do it because he had a crush
Speaker 3: are at work.
Speaker 2: You're just like, yeah, yeah, but he's But he stops
Speaker 2: and he shoots himself, which makes Milton burst into flames,
Speaker 2: and which makes Cristabella shrivel.
Speaker 3: Up and die.
Speaker 4: Yeah, she turns into a piece of drift. What I
Speaker 4: think that's pretty fun.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's what happens to women who aren't having sex
Speaker 3: with Keanu Reeves in this movie.
Speaker 4: That actually happens if he stopped being sexually active for
Speaker 4: a full twenty minutes, he can start desiccating.
Speaker 2: Yes, so they seem to die, or at least Crystabella does,
Speaker 2: but Kevin doesn't die despite the gunshot wound to his head. Instead,
Speaker 2: he's transported back to the scene at the beginning of
Speaker 2: the movie where he's defending that teacher who abuses his students,
Speaker 2: and he he's like, oh my god, I have a
Speaker 2: second chance. I can redeem myself. So he quits the
Speaker 2: case mid trial, which you're not supposed to do.
Speaker 3: You're not supposed to do that and all. No, but
Speaker 3: the optics of if this was some weird like fantasy
Speaker 3: he had at the urinal or whatever, like, it sort
Speaker 3: of feels like that. But then he goes back into
Speaker 3: this very serious trial, this trial where a child has
Speaker 3: been assaulted, and he starts making out with his wife.
Speaker 3: I was like, oh, yeah, god, Kevin, it's a very.
Speaker 4: Good point, and also like what's gonna happen? Like is
Speaker 4: it going to be a mistrial? And then your you know,
Speaker 4: child plaintiff has to go through all this again, like
Speaker 4: use your head, piano. I realize you can't as this character.
Speaker 4: But yeah, but isn't it just wonderful that the ending
Speaker 4: of this movie is it was all a dreamer? Was
Speaker 4: it is?
Speaker 3: It's the only thing this movie hasn't done at this
Speaker 3: point that you're like sure, like, oh, okay, we're doing it.
Speaker 3: And then al Pacino is, uh, the vanity is my favorite. Shit,
Speaker 3: You're like, what.
Speaker 4: He's playing a journalist, the other most evil profession according
Speaker 4: to the nineties.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's true.
Speaker 2: That's true because the way the movie ends is this
Speaker 2: minor journalist character who we've seen before, but only at
Speaker 2: the very beginning. At the very end, he transforms into
Speaker 2: al Pacino, looks directly at the camera says, ah, yeah,
Speaker 2: vanity my favorite sin, and then he like winks and
Speaker 2: then cut to black.
Speaker 3: I love it, And then I think, honestly, this movie
Speaker 3: that has no restraint. I was really impressed that they
Speaker 3: had the restraint to spend a million dollars on painted
Speaker 3: black instead of sympathy for the devil. I thought that
Speaker 3: that was probably really hard for them to not use
Speaker 3: sympathy for the devil in this movie every single time
Speaker 3: al Pacino was on screen. And also sympathy for the
Speaker 3: devil had just been used in Legion or whatever the
Speaker 3: Denzel Washington Oh movie is, so maybe it was feeling
Speaker 3: like overplayed. So it does end kind of Judy Dungeon
Speaker 3: cat style at the end, you have just.
Speaker 6: A tale of cats, Like that's sort of the vibe
Speaker 6: of Alba.
Speaker 3: It is like that I.
Speaker 4: Would watch I'm actually watching this on a double bill
Speaker 4: with cats, like you would emerge no longer able to
Speaker 4: do math, you know, you.
Speaker 3: Would really be like I can't read. I don't remember
Speaker 3: where I'm from.
Speaker 4: Fallen is the Denzel Washington movie I'm thinking of when
Speaker 4: that came out in nineteen ninety eight, So that could
Speaker 4: be your Demonic Rolling Stones double feature as well.
Speaker 3: I did not. No, I also feel like Scorsese uses
Speaker 3: a needle drop with that song in like four hundred
Speaker 3: of his movies.
Speaker 4: Yeah, nobody loves the Rolling Stones like Scorsese loves the
Speaker 4: Rolling Stones. I'm convinced that's true, and that's why he
Speaker 4: is Father Cannon And spoilers for the ending of Angel Heart,
Speaker 4: where by the way, de Niro is playing playing the
Speaker 4: devil but doing a Scorsese impression in order to play
Speaker 4: the devil. But it's like, what if Scorsese had long
Speaker 4: nail and it was always eating eggs. It's like, yeah,
Speaker 4: what if?
Speaker 3: What if? I'm in?
Speaker 4: And then it ends spoilers for Angel Heart, which is
Speaker 4: a very strange movie.
Speaker 3: I heard of it. Well.
Speaker 4: It ends with Mickey Rourke realizing that he's been had
Speaker 4: and that he just hasked to go to hell now,
Speaker 4: and he just goes to Hell and that's the end,
Speaker 4: and you're like, wow, I don't I mean, I didn't
Speaker 4: really like that character, but I don't really feel like.
Speaker 3: He deserves to go to hell.
Speaker 4: No, we're ending in hell. Okay, that's the end of
Speaker 4: the movie. And there's just like there's something to me
Speaker 4: that's so revealing about like these two endings where it's
Speaker 4: like you tangle with the devil, you don't really get
Speaker 4: the chance to make choices. He does a lot of speeches,
Speaker 4: and then at the end you either suffer all consequences
Speaker 4: or no consequences. Yeah, because it feels like it was
Speaker 4: never really about what you did. It's just about the
Speaker 4: sort of like feeling and masculinity of being damned.
Speaker 2: I don't know, right, Well, I guess if you're looking
Speaker 2: at the movie like it was all a dream, a
Speaker 2: vision of what his life could have been had he
Speaker 2: you know, sold out.
Speaker 3: He continue to do the job he does, right.
Speaker 2: Or is it that all of those events did happen
Speaker 2: and then he just gets like the biggest magic chance
Speaker 2: at redemption ever, which like he did not deserve. What
Speaker 2: has he done to earn any kind of redemption? Absolutely nothing.
Speaker 3: The moral of.
Speaker 4: This movie is if you die of suicide, you get
Speaker 4: a do over, which is not really what we needed
Speaker 4: to be telling people, And also he transforms into Jesus
Speaker 4: for a second.
Speaker 2: God, I keep missing Jesus, but with wings so like
Speaker 2: an angel.
Speaker 4: You can't take your eyes off this movie for a second.
Speaker 4: It's like a toddler.
Speaker 3: Some shit's gonna happen. It's very bizarre.
Speaker 2: Well, let's take a quick break and then we will
Speaker 2: come back to discuss.
Speaker 3: And we're back, Sarah. I would love to, if you're down,
Speaker 3: start this discussion with a little understanding of like the
Speaker 3: historical context that this movie was coming out into. What
Speaker 3: was the I know we've sort of been like talking
Speaker 3: around this for much of the episode, but like, what
Speaker 3: was the state of Satanic media in the late nineties.
Speaker 4: Oh wow, Yeah, I mean I feel like we had
Speaker 4: stuff and we can see it in this movie, kind
Speaker 4: of referencing the millennium approaching and asking this question of
Speaker 4: like what kind of a millennium are we going to have?
Speaker 4: Which is very interesting to try and think back to
Speaker 4: in a pre nine to eleven context, because it turned
Speaker 4: out that the kind of millennium the United States was
Speaker 4: going to have, at least so far, would have the
Speaker 4: tone set for us by turning an act of terrorism
Speaker 4: and tragedy into an opportunity to destabilize an entire region
Speaker 4: while searching for profit and claiming to be getting revenge
Speaker 4: while actually doing something unrelated and relying on the average Americans'
Speaker 4: misunderstandings about geography in order to you know, make a
Speaker 4: lot of money for Halliburton. So it feels like, interestingly,
Speaker 4: the kind of millennium that we started off with with
Speaker 4: our decision to start a war in the Middle East
Speaker 4: was one where we got to do anything we wanted
Speaker 4: by playing the victim. And I think that that's there's
Speaker 4: kind of an interesting It's just interesting to see this movie,
Speaker 4: I think partly because it feels like a combination of
Speaker 4: like these ideas that we had that I think America
Speaker 4: has historically used about Satan, where I think Satan is
Speaker 4: kind of the great American scapegoat, where like, if you're
Speaker 4: claiming to eradicate Satan, you can behave pretty horribly, but
Speaker 4: if you're claiming to be on the right side of
Speaker 4: a holy war, then whatever you do is pretty much justified,
Speaker 4: including genocide if you're talking about the way that North
Speaker 4: America was colonized. And then the very like robust nineties
Speaker 4: genre of the courtroom drama, which I think feels itself
Speaker 4: to be this very rational, academic kind of mode of
Speaker 4: storytelling that helps make people feel smarter for consuming, or
Speaker 4: at least I think that's part of the basis for
Speaker 4: the appeal, but really is able to tell these highly
Speaker 4: emotional stories that allow Americans to feel that the Constitution
Speaker 4: is often this annoying thing that gets in the way
Speaker 4: of punishing defendants a little bit too freely because it's
Speaker 4: politically popular and it's fun to be vindictive.
Speaker 3: Fuck, okay, Sarah, Sarah, you're so smart.
Speaker 4: And also we you know, Starbucks has like upholstered chairs.
Speaker 4: At this time, it's just like a wild time to
Speaker 4: be alive. I guess I want to impress you guys.
Speaker 3: You're so smart. No, I mean, yes, that's like so
Speaker 3: much to think about, but I agree, like because I
Speaker 3: what I was struggling with, I guess was not really
Speaker 3: putting myself in the audience for this, but like trying
Speaker 3: to understand what did the movie want you to walk
Speaker 3: away thinking, which I think is it's hard to know,
Speaker 3: mostly a craft issue that we don't know. But I'm curious.
Speaker 3: I just I'm like, I was really kind of racking
Speaker 3: my brain, and that's why I was looking at like
Speaker 3: adaptation changes and stuff like that to be like, huh,
Speaker 3: what did this very successful movie want us to leave
Speaker 3: thinking about? And I guess what? I could not figure
Speaker 3: it out.
Speaker 2: I still don't know. I have similar questions not only
Speaker 2: regarding the movie overall, the overall narrative and themes, but
Speaker 2: also as they relate to how we're supposed to view
Speaker 2: Mary Anne as a character, how we are supposed to
Speaker 2: be perceiving her, and whether or not we were supposed
Speaker 2: to be empathizing with her or what.
Speaker 3: Exactly My view was that will leving because I feel
Speaker 3: like I don't know. She's not a well written character, right,
Speaker 3: but she's better written than I thought she would be
Speaker 3: in that at least for a good chunk of the movie.
Speaker 3: The things she does have narrative consequence, which most movie
Speaker 3: wives that is just not the case. I felt like
Speaker 3: we started by empathizing with her and then we end
Speaker 3: by pitying her, which is, like I thought, like a
Speaker 3: very unpleasant turn of events.
Speaker 2: That plus I well, because like she starts out, especially
Speaker 2: upon them moving to New York and Kevin accepting this
Speaker 2: job and they move into this big, beautiful apartment and
Speaker 2: now she's tasked because she's the his wife who has
Speaker 2: given up her job. I think her job in Florida
Speaker 2: was she was selling repossessed cars.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean it was like she was doing something
Speaker 4: alone shark related.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so she was also doing both kind of dirt bags,
Speaker 3: but like you know, she had a she was a
Speaker 3: career dirt bag, and he took that from her.
Speaker 4: Get a cell phone and a little suit, and she
Speaker 4: was like doing business on the side of a highway,
Speaker 4: which is just such a nineties feminism girl boss thing
Speaker 4: to show.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's like when Julia Robberts knows how to fix
Speaker 3: a car and you're supposed to be like and you're like,
Speaker 3: they really do do something there.
Speaker 2: She moved to New York and she starts. The two
Speaker 2: things we know about her at that point are that
Speaker 2: she wants desperately to have a baby and she doesn't
Speaker 2: know how to decorate her apartment. And we're like, okay,
Speaker 2: can we get maybe a third thing?
Speaker 3: Like what see? I felt like the apartments of it's
Speaker 3: super clunky. Like I do feel what they're trying to
Speaker 3: do there is like she's a society wife now and
Speaker 3: there's like class tension between her and everyone's surrounded by
Speaker 3: and it does pay off on that, but like for
Speaker 3: her again, like I just I don't know, Like there
Speaker 3: were things that I'm like, Okay, it's being done badly,
Speaker 3: but I think I get what they're trying to do,
Speaker 3: But this I don't know, Like just like the same
Speaker 3: thing with Jackie, who at first I was like, Okay,
Speaker 3: is this going to be a super prescriptive black best
Speaker 3: friend character that we saw so much throughout the nineties,
Speaker 3: And the answer is yes and also opposite, like I
Speaker 3: don't know, and also she's a demon, so yeah, I
Speaker 3: just don't think Jackie should have been either al Pacino
Speaker 3: nor a demon, because it does end up feeling like
Speaker 3: Mariann almost has someone to talk to, and I feel
Speaker 3: like it would have been a more interesting and cohesive
Speaker 3: choice to write Jackie an actual character and have them
Speaker 3: like going through this together or like, I don't know,
Speaker 3: like it just felt so clunky the way that like
Speaker 3: there were elements introduced about mary Anne that like didn't
Speaker 3: pay off or like went away because they're like she's
Speaker 3: going mad kind of thing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, right, Oh my gosh, I've there's so much to
Speaker 2: unpack here. There's a scene where Marianne and Jackie are
Speaker 2: talking and mary Anne is trying to adjust to this
Speaker 2: new life she had been accustomed to working. She says
Speaker 2: something like, this is the first time since I was
Speaker 2: thirteen years old where I haven't had at least one job.
Speaker 2: She liked to be out in the workforce, and she
Speaker 2: liked to be occupied with something that wasn't just like
Speaker 2: domestic tasks and decorating her house. So she's like lamenting
Speaker 2: about this to Jackie. Jackie's just like, what are you
Speaker 2: complaining about. Our husbands are rich and just enjoy the money.
Speaker 2: Let's go shopping and drink chardonnay all day.
Speaker 3: And you're like, wait, she's being written so poorly. And
Speaker 3: then later it's like, no, we rude her mad on purpose.
Speaker 3: She's the consumption demon. You're like, what.
Speaker 2: Right, And it's evil to get any sort of cosmetic surgery,
Speaker 2: And but she's written to be this like very you know, vapid, vein,
Speaker 2: like spending money frivolously kind of person.
Speaker 3: Well, it's just like the very like gendered way that
Speaker 3: like sin is presented to where it's like everyone it's
Speaker 3: not like the women are worse than the it's but
Speaker 3: it's like they're they're quote aqut bad in these very
Speaker 3: stereotypical ways where it's like their sins are vanity and
Speaker 3: their sins are like consumption, and then men's sins are
Speaker 3: like greed and artisty like, and there's really no overlap
Speaker 3: except for the character of Pam. Pam is the only
Speaker 3: woman who has a career, and I do feel like
Speaker 3: we are allowed to well, I guess that, so does
Speaker 3: what's her name, missus the devil Crystabella, Yeah, Chris Stabella
Speaker 3: and pasta or whatever.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, oh yeah, when you're here, your family at
Speaker 2: the the Devil's Garden, So that's kind of a separate thing.
Speaker 2: And then as Marianne is observing all of these sinful
Speaker 2: women and trying to confide in Kevin to be like,
Speaker 2: things are really weird, things are very wrong. I don't
Speaker 2: like our new lives. It feels like we're doing something
Speaker 2: wrong and I'm seeing demons and blah blah blah, and
Speaker 2: he is, you know, again, constantly dismissing her and gaslighting
Speaker 2: her and all of that. What I can't really figure
Speaker 2: out is if the again, if the movie wants us
Speaker 2: to empathize with her, or if it wants us to
Speaker 2: think that she's being hysterical and getting in the way
Speaker 2: of Kevin's success or a little bit of both. It
Speaker 2: almost feels to me like, yeah, we're supposed to empathize
Speaker 2: with her a bit, But also it felt as though,
Speaker 2: and I haven't read anything to this effect, so I
Speaker 2: can't confirm this, but it almost felt as though the
Speaker 2: director was like, Hey, really ramp up the hysterics here,
Speaker 2: Charlie's so that we feel like she's almost a foil
Speaker 2: to Kevin. Because there's that scene where she's she's in
Speaker 2: the church and she's crying and she's wrapped in a
Speaker 2: blanket and then she like throws it off of her
Speaker 2: and she's naked and crying and screaming. Yeah, And I'm like.
Speaker 3: What my like feeling on her is that like we
Speaker 3: are supposed to think she's telling the truth, because we
Speaker 3: are given every indication that she's telling the truth. Like
Speaker 3: if we thought we were supposed to not find her credible,
Speaker 3: we wouldn't see what she sees, right, And so like,
Speaker 3: I don't think that we're supposed to not believe her
Speaker 3: or I don't know. I guess I didn't see it
Speaker 3: as like we're not supposed to hear as a foil.
Speaker 3: It just felt like she was this kind of like
Speaker 3: stand in for virtue in a virtueless world. It's like
Speaker 3: her and the mom that they're like, I don't know,
Speaker 3: like they're the only virtuous way to live is to
Speaker 3: move back to Florida and go to church for like
Speaker 3: twenty hours a day.
Speaker 4: Right, and it quite your original profession that you were
Speaker 4: going to use to improve your family's financial situation and
Speaker 4: become a peanut farmer or whatever.
Speaker 3: Yeah, right, Yeah, I don't.
Speaker 2: Know if it's because we're also in the middle of
Speaker 2: prepping for an episode on Don't Worry Darling, which is
Speaker 2: also a movie about and.
Speaker 3: Also very Rosemary's Baby coated.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, for sure, but similar to Devil's Advocate. Don't
Speaker 2: Worry Darling is a movie about a woman who starts
Speaker 2: to suspect something is very wrong with her husband's job
Speaker 2: and her husband's boss, and she tries to speak up
Speaker 2: about it. But that movie. Not to say that that
Speaker 2: movie is like awesome and perfect or anything like that,
Speaker 2: but at least it's told from the woman's point of view.
Speaker 4: So mag Fenf's eighty percent of Don't Worry Darling was
Speaker 4: from the perspective of Harry Styles, I would not have
Speaker 4: made it right.
Speaker 2: But I guess my point is, I just it felt
Speaker 2: to me like we are supposed to empathize and or
Speaker 2: pity the Marian character. But also I feel like the
Speaker 2: movie is reveling in and exploiting the idea of a
Speaker 2: woman's hysteria, for sure, And that's part of the the
Speaker 2: like spookiness of this movie and the tension of this movie.
Speaker 4: When it feels very down in Betty Draper, you know,
Speaker 4: and it feels like kind of that also, like to
Speaker 4: the extent that there is a coherent theme happening. And
Speaker 4: I may be too generous and seeing this in it,
Speaker 4: but it feels like it's you know, kind of you
Speaker 4: can I feel the echoes at least of media about
Speaker 4: the kind of long lineage of men who have signed
Speaker 4: on to value their relationships with scary mentoring men at
Speaker 4: work over what it's doing to their families, and the
Speaker 4: kind of like I don't know, parable of the New
Speaker 4: York professional class.
Speaker 3: Yeah that's true. Yeah, I've like, I don't know, it's
Speaker 3: so incoherent that it's hard Like I feel like she
Speaker 3: is I mean, ultimately, she is defined and happening in
Speaker 3: reaction to his narrative, right, So it's it's weird because
Speaker 3: there are like technically a lot of scenes that we
Speaker 3: see from her point of view, but it's never like,
Speaker 3: I mean, her whole story is happening in reaction to
Speaker 3: his by design, And so it's like, I don't know
Speaker 3: it's true, and I feel bad because it's like Shirley's
Speaker 3: is doing her best with what she's given, but it's
Speaker 3: but it's again, it's like it almost felt like a
Speaker 3: fake out that they gave her women to talk to,
Speaker 3: but like actually they didn't. Yeah, and so I don't know,
Speaker 3: like there's a cooler version of that character who it's
Speaker 3: like in the same way that you see Keiani's character
Speaker 3: get more and more depraved, even though he also starts
Speaker 3: that way, So you're like, what is the progression here?
Speaker 3: Like you also see her become more and more like
Speaker 3: helpless in a way that I don't know what they're
Speaker 3: trying to say.
Speaker 4: And like really quickly in kind of a Victorian femininity
Speaker 4: approach where it's like, you know, most women are four
Speaker 4: or five bad dreams away from snapping, and it's like
Speaker 4: we mental health science has come really quite far in
Speaker 4: the past one hundred years, not as far as it could,
Speaker 4: but you know, or.
Speaker 3: Like you're saying, Kaitlin like the hysteric woman trope, where
Speaker 3: like it's just it's so like inconsistent and weird because
Speaker 3: I did, like, you know whatever, I didn't like like
Speaker 3: her character like wow, so compelling, but but like going
Speaker 3: back to like the beginning where there is a clear
Speaker 3: element of like how she feels about stuff and like
Speaker 3: she feels out of place, and like that is interesting,
Speaker 3: Like she's a total fish out of water, and we
Speaker 3: know why you can almost understand like why she ends
Speaker 3: up like being kind of charmed by the al Pacino character,
Speaker 3: because first of all, he's the devil that's kind of
Speaker 3: his trademark, but also that like she specifically tells Kevin
Speaker 3: going into the party, please don't leave me alone and uncomfortable.
Speaker 3: He leaves her alone immediately, and we do see that
Speaker 3: bear through. She has an Alexander Petrowski well it's like
Speaker 3: and she's super mad at him. Afterwards, she makes him
Speaker 3: sleep on the couch and she ends up talking with
Speaker 3: al Pacino, who is like the only person at the
Speaker 3: party who isn't making her uncomfortable and it's like, that's
Speaker 3: wild because if he's doing she'll be making her so uncomfortable. Well,
Speaker 3: because he's.
Speaker 2: Like, your hair like shit. He's like nagging her, your
Speaker 2: hair looks like shit. But he's like doing it sensually,
Speaker 2: question mark, And I guess she's.
Speaker 3: Like just doing the devil thing.
Speaker 4: And like heures how annoying lawyers are at parties. You
Speaker 4: know that if the devil starts snagging you, you're like, oh,
Speaker 4: thank god.
Speaker 3: Right, You're like, this is the most tolerable person here. Yeah,
Speaker 3: I don't know, Like I Marianne, I think is an
Speaker 3: interesting character, which is like what makes it such a
Speaker 3: shame that they sort of reduce her to this very
Speaker 3: tropy thing, for sure, and the end that the fact that,
Speaker 3: and it's like I appreciate that whatever. It's like, when
Speaker 3: are we going to have kids? Are we going to
Speaker 3: have kids? Is a big narrative in a lot of
Speaker 3: people's marriage, but it also feels very like trite to
Speaker 3: be like, and all she wants to do is have
Speaker 3: a baby, But don't worry. It's the nineties and we
Speaker 3: know that we have to do a little bit of feminism.
Speaker 3: So she used to have a job and she misses it,
Speaker 3: so you're like, cool, it does feel yeah, Calen.
Speaker 4: The more I think about it, it feels like the kind
Speaker 4: of Victorian hysterical woman where she also is like the
Speaker 4: implication is kind of that she's becoming mentally ill because
Speaker 4: of all the evil around her. Oh yeah, you know,
Speaker 4: and this idea of like the Victorian woman as like
Speaker 4: both weaker and more virtuous than men, and therefore, like,
Speaker 4: you know, if you're doing something, if you work for
Speaker 4: the devil, your wife's gonna get sick, right.
Speaker 2: Well. Then it's also if I was observing something that
Speaker 2: I thought was wrong or that seemed evil, and I
Speaker 2: was trying to tell my partner about it, and he
Speaker 2: was constantly dismissing me, it, ignoring me and gaslighting me,
Speaker 2: I would grow increasingly frustrated, and I would also start
Speaker 2: yelling and screaming and crying. Yeah, and so her behavior
Speaker 2: is not unjustified. It's just that the movie is like,
Speaker 2: and oh, but she she's so But I don't even
Speaker 2: know what the movie is trying to say.
Speaker 8: I don't know because it's like that I don't think
Speaker 8: like the movie like the movie can't have it's trying
Speaker 8: to have it always too because they're also styling her
Speaker 8: like a woman who's gone mad, where it like looks
Speaker 8: like she's two black eyes from crying at all times
Speaker 8: and shit like that, and like right.
Speaker 4: But we also know what she's saying is true, right,
Speaker 4: and that these are like correct visions. There aren't visions exactly,
Speaker 4: they're like she's seeing correctly what's going on. But then
Speaker 4: she paints their apartment to look like a global village cafe,
Speaker 4: so that implies that she's losing it.
Speaker 3: She has she has virtue vision, I think is like ultimately,
Speaker 3: she's she has virtuous goggles on in all times, and
Speaker 3: Keanu does not have virtuous goggles on, and it kills
Speaker 3: her question mark like, yeah, I don't, I don't know.
Speaker 3: I wish that she had gone home with his mother.
Speaker 4: That would be nice, That's what I wish it had happened. Yeah,
Speaker 4: And that's a nice performance from Ju to th Ivy
Speaker 4: as his tent revival type mom. I feel like, ultimately
Speaker 4: the only character who this movie really cares about is
Speaker 4: the devil, and yeah, that's you know, it's a fun devil.
Speaker 4: They did get with the devil.
Speaker 3: I do think, yeah, use that would be a fun
Speaker 3: I don't know enough. Do you have a favorite portrayal
Speaker 3: of the devil? Sarah as kind of a devilhead yourself,
Speaker 3: So yeah, I put this in the series.
Speaker 4: One of my all time favorite devil portrayals is a
Speaker 4: Saturday Night Live sketch that's a parody of the People's
Speaker 4: Court where John Lovett's is the devil and he's trying
Speaker 4: to get damages from the plaintiffs.
Speaker 3: I are.
Speaker 4: One of them is Rosanna Arcat, who must have been
Speaker 4: hosting that week because she sold her soul in exchange
Speaker 4: for like three professional hairdryers and stuff, and so it's
Speaker 4: the devil trying to get the People's Court to side
Speaker 4: with him for like, you know, the three thousand dollars
Speaker 4: that he invested in her hair business and exchanged for
Speaker 4: her soul that she then wasn't able to make work.
Speaker 4: And I feel like that's it, Like it feels like,
Speaker 4: you know, the devil. I really like depictions where you
Speaker 4: have kind of like a funny, low stakes devil who's
Speaker 4: having a hard time on daytime TV, because I feel like,
Speaker 4: in actual execution, it all seems a bit low rent.
Speaker 4: You know that you have to like go soul by
Speaker 4: soul trying to get people to sign bad contracts, and
Speaker 4: of course the association of the devil with contract laws
Speaker 4: relatively modern, but I mean I really like that we've
Speaker 4: taken it and like, you know that the devil and
Speaker 4: lawyers do go together and it's about you know, being
Speaker 4: pressured into signing a bad contract and a lot of
Speaker 4: our modern depictions. I also like, I saw a bit
Speaker 4: dazzled at a young age, and we'll always have a
Speaker 4: soft spot for that one. For the Elizabeth Hurley Devil.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm a fan of the Elizabeth Hurley Devil. I
Speaker 3: mean just one styling alone, exactly. Yeah, So I feel like,
Speaker 3: I like, I always love a comedy devil. And then
Speaker 3: if I'm watching a horror movie where it's like, actually
Speaker 3: the villain is the devil, I'm like, whatever, you know,
Speaker 3: because I feel like the things that like I saw
Speaker 3: I was watching I don't know, like some TikTok about
Speaker 3: Hereditary the other day where I saw a position I like,
Speaker 3: surprisingly don't see people state that often, but which I
Speaker 3: really agree with where somebody was like, you know, if
Speaker 3: only they hadn't had spoilers for Hereditary, if only they
Speaker 3: hadn't had the whole like Satan worshiping aspect uncovered in
Speaker 3: Hereditary because like, yeah, we thought that as well, right,
Speaker 3: because like the extreme bleakness of just the interpersonal stuff
Speaker 3: and the depiction of like a family being really horrible
Speaker 3: to each other while grieving is so scary.
Speaker 4: And then you bring in the devil and you're like, ugh, whatever,
Speaker 4: you know's a cop out.
Speaker 3: The Devil's usually a cop out.
Speaker 4: I feel like, yeah, I feel like the devil usually
Speaker 4: makes things less scary. So I love a good comedy devil.
Speaker 4: I mean, I think Flanders as the Devil, and tree
Speaker 4: House of Horror is also pretty iconic. Do either of
Speaker 4: you have favorite devil depictions?
Speaker 2: I'd have to know.
Speaker 3: I didn't. I feel like I didn't see the Dazzled
Speaker 3: until I watch it for this show. I don't know.
Speaker 3: I think the only devil depiction, oh, you know what,
Speaker 3: the Cow and Chicken devil, the little cartoon devil that
Speaker 3: bounces on his own.
Speaker 4: But I don't think I remember I remember cowing Chicken.
Speaker 4: I don't remember that devil. I got to check that out.
Speaker 3: They had a devil. Yeah, the cartoon network devil is
Speaker 3: probably my favorite devil. But there you go. But enough
Speaker 3: about the devil. Let's talk about how race is depicted
Speaker 3: in this movie. Oh yeah, it was the nineties, so
Speaker 3: you know, I'm sure they did a good job. This
Speaker 3: is a movie that has non white characters. It is
Speaker 3: again like an overwhelmingly white view of New York, but
Speaker 3: the non white characters who we see are overwhelmingly these
Speaker 3: broad racist stereotypes. I think really with the exception of
Speaker 3: the two wealthy black characters Jackie and Lee lu.
Speaker 2: And they've they've been corrupted by greed.
Speaker 3: They're actually al Pacino or something. So it's like, but
Speaker 3: even they are like severely underwritten, you know, in comparison
Speaker 3: to the other characters in this world. I mean, I
Speaker 3: guess Jackie is sort of like the only quote unquote
Speaker 3: friend at any point to Maryanne. But again, she's whatever
Speaker 3: they're to either be like I'm gonna teach you how
Speaker 3: to be a society wife, or like its just everything
Speaker 3: she does is in reaction to Maryanne or al Pacino,
Speaker 3: Like she doesn't really exist independently. And then they make
Speaker 3: that canon, which is a choice, right.
Speaker 2: And then with her husband Lehman, he's barely a character,
Speaker 2: but he he's the guy who approaches Keanu in Florida
Speaker 2: to be like, hey, come up to Yeah, he says something.
Speaker 2: He thinks that he's being pranked. He's like, oh hah,
Speaker 2: I can put you up to this. You being black
Speaker 2: is a part of the Joe right, And I'm like,
Speaker 2: what are you talking about?
Speaker 4: Like what was going on in Florida law firms in
Speaker 4: nineteen ninety seven.
Speaker 3: I mean, I was like, I guess that that is
Speaker 3: a realistic depiction of a random white guy at a
Speaker 3: bar in Florida. Is that he's true weird and racist,
Speaker 3: But like, yeah, that so there's like a lot of
Speaker 3: offhand comments about that most black and brown characters appear
Speaker 3: as antagonists or just like, I mean, I'm thinking about
Speaker 3: the guys on the train are portrayed in this very
Speaker 3: stereotypical way. One of the two unhoused people who kills
Speaker 3: Jeffrey Jones is a black cacharacter that I didn't even
Speaker 3: want to like rehash the specific stereotypes there, because you
Speaker 3: know what they are. But it's just like, yeah, it
Speaker 3: is very nineties in its portrayal of race. The Delroy
Speaker 3: Lindo character.
Speaker 2: Yes, so I think you were alluding to this toward
Speaker 2: the top of the episode, Sarah, But the question of
Speaker 2: because Kevin defends his character in court saying that he
Speaker 2: was simply carrying out a religious practice, which he has
Speaker 2: the constitutional right to do.
Speaker 3: At darn constitution.
Speaker 2: But he's making the argument like we might think that
Speaker 2: killing a goat at home is weird in our Western
Speaker 2: Christian world, but is it any weirder than eating veal
Speaker 2: or getting circumcised or other cultural practices that we deemed
Speaker 2: to be normal. And it's like, yeah, fair point. But
Speaker 2: it feels like the movie is presenting all of this
Speaker 2: as like we are still supposed to think that Filipe
Speaker 2: Moyees is like weird and what he's doing is really
Speaker 2: fucked up.
Speaker 3: Because he had to hire the devil to defend him,
Speaker 3: like that tells you everything you need to know about it.
Speaker 4: And he's got too many candles, like he's either shooting
Speaker 4: a Celine Dion music video or he's worshiping the devil.
Speaker 4: As the implication I feel like.
Speaker 3: And now, if Joel Schumacher had been staging the Candle set,
Speaker 3: Oh Boy, based on what we know about his Phantom
Speaker 3: of the Opera sets, it would have just it felt
Speaker 3: a little slap dash. There's a better director to have
Speaker 3: a room full of candles.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so that felt all over the place and racist
Speaker 2: in the way that that character is portrayed.
Speaker 4: And the idea is that right that, like Hannah Reeves
Speaker 4: is making sort of a classic nineties liberal argument of
Speaker 4: like multiculturalism is good and it's like too much culture
Speaker 4: equals devil.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 4: I think Law and Order was also pointing out a
Speaker 4: time it's like, don't be too tolerant. You could be
Speaker 4: tolerating the devil.
Speaker 3: Devil.
Speaker 2: Yes, so that's a mess.
Speaker 3: He's just a mess. This movie's just a weird mess,
Speaker 3: like mess see and yet weirdly well executed.
Speaker 4: Like the art design is fantastic, it looks great, it
Speaker 4: looks the editing I think is done very well. And
Speaker 4: then in terms of theme, you're like, what.
Speaker 3: You have to imagine that they were editing around a lot.
Speaker 4: But including al Pacino speaking Spanish sort of.
Speaker 3: But the just a little more about the production. I mean,
Speaker 3: we've talked about a lot of it. Some of it's
Speaker 3: just funny, which is that al Pacino hated Taylor Hackford,
Speaker 3: the director, and would always show up late and was like,
Speaker 3: I hate this guy. He allegedly did not like Keanu
Speaker 3: and thought Keanu was doing a bad job, which is
Speaker 3: mean to say, but is it incorrect to say we
Speaker 3: don't know? Oh, and that speaking to your earlier points,
Speaker 3: Sarah that this movie was sort of languishing in production
Speaker 3: for a while, but then got a real shot to
Speaker 3: the arm when the O. J. Simpson case happened. They
Speaker 3: were like, oh, this is now's the time to do this,
Speaker 3: and now we've got.
Speaker 4: A green light, these evil lawyer movie.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you might even say this movie was in development.
Speaker 3: Hell, that's where the Devil lives. Albacina's keeping the movie
Speaker 3: inside of the inside of his room two ears, big
Speaker 3: fuck rough that he lives in everywhere.
Speaker 4: So it's like, you don't ever want to just lie down, really,
Speaker 4: even if you don't, even if you don't.
Speaker 2: Need to sleep, it's nice to lie down.
Speaker 3: It's so nice to lie down.
Speaker 2: It's my favorite thing to do.
Speaker 3: Colin, you don't want to lie down? The Devil doesn't
Speaker 3: need floor time? Am I really to believe that? But yeah,
Speaker 3: I'm like I think that. That's Oh. The last thing
Speaker 3: I wanted to say was about Pam, uh.
Speaker 2: Because I left her out of the recap altogether because
Speaker 2: I was like, who who even is Pam? But Louise,
Speaker 2: please continue.
Speaker 3: I like Pam. Also, Pam is played by an actor
Speaker 3: named Deborah Monk, who had never heard of but she
Speaker 3: has a tony and emmy.
Speaker 2: So wow, she's halfway to egotting.
Speaker 4: Now that you know Deborah Monk's face, you're going to
Speaker 4: see her in everything. I feel like she's kind of
Speaker 4: the cherry of this firm.
Speaker 3: Perhaps I whatever the character is random, but I did
Speaker 3: feel like it just brought up another nineties Ish trope
Speaker 3: where there's two women that work at this law firm.
Speaker 3: One is the daughter of the devil. We know that
Speaker 3: she is multilingual, but we don't really know what she
Speaker 3: does because she's there to be hot, which is not
Speaker 3: saying anything about the actor as saying that's how this
Speaker 3: part was written for Connie Nielsen. But Pam is allowed
Speaker 3: to just be good at her job, and I think
Speaker 3: the reason that is is because she is in her
Speaker 3: forties and is not rail Finn, which is the like
Speaker 3: in the nineties.
Speaker 4: I think you're allowed to be good at your job
Speaker 4: as a woman and actually depicted doing it occasionally if
Speaker 4: you're like menopausal and are wearing a top with big
Speaker 4: buttons on it.
Speaker 3: Right, I mean, well, it's just like the another example
Speaker 3: of like you just can't win no matter who you are.
Speaker 3: Of like, sure if we are if we are telling
Speaker 3: you that this character is not sexually desirable, then we
Speaker 3: will be okay with her being just canonically good at
Speaker 3: her job. You're like, now, what the fuck?
Speaker 2: What the fuck?
Speaker 3: I guess she's on The Gilded Age, which is a
Speaker 3: show that I watch, So there you go.
Speaker 4: Yeah, anyways, I cap meaning to watch that. I like
Speaker 4: to see Cynthia Nixon do something else.
Speaker 3: You'd love, you'd love the damn Gilded Age. But my mom,
Speaker 3: I love a big over the top house. It's a
Speaker 3: show to watch with your mom. It's good.
Speaker 2: Is Christine Baranski in it? Or remind me?
Speaker 3: Yeah? Yeah, she and Cynthia Nix and our sisters, which genius,
Speaker 3: oh genius casting. Yeah.
Speaker 4: I do think my mom would get bored very quickly
Speaker 4: if there's not like one murder per episode, because she's
Speaker 4: very like that's what she expects out of TV.
Speaker 3: Point.
Speaker 4: But you know, we can always I can always edit something,
Speaker 4: and you could.
Speaker 3: Just edit a random murder into everything, yeah, and then
Speaker 3: I'll be like, there you go, someone's dead.
Speaker 4: I just feel like I cut from unsolved mysteries, and
Speaker 4: then I'll be like, Okay, this is all about the murder.
Speaker 4: It may not be clear right now, but they're investigating
Speaker 4: the murder by having sex in this nice bed but
Speaker 4: can't to que and cover.
Speaker 3: I really liked the story.
Speaker 4: That they got in legal trouble with like this sort
Speaker 4: of statue, the big like art piece behind al Pacino's
Speaker 4: desk in his big Devil office because an artist who
Speaker 4: had made a very similar sculpture sued and they were
Speaker 4: gonna maybe not be able to release it on time
Speaker 4: for home video if they and so they had to
Speaker 4: like go back and kind of incredibly at this point
Speaker 4: in time digitally alter the footage of this art piece
Speaker 4: so that it, whoa basically wasn't too similar to the
Speaker 4: the artist's previous piece, which apparently they were emulating pretty closely,
Speaker 4: and so we're only had like human figures trapped in
Speaker 4: this kind of mailstorm mailstrom, mailstrom, that's probably the word.
Speaker 4: So they like had to it's definitely not male storm,
Speaker 4: that would just be a lot of male and a cyclone.
Speaker 4: But so they had to smooth the human figures out
Speaker 4: of this piece until the kind of big final monologue
Speaker 4: scene when they're allowed to be there again. But it's
Speaker 4: I guess you think about the people who had to
Speaker 4: do that job.
Speaker 3: That's so funny to me because like, no matter which way,
Speaker 3: no matter what way you hack it, it looks like shit.
Speaker 3: Like yeah, so that also. Yeah, I also saw that
Speaker 3: they used Pacino's like Godfather Too face to digitally edit
Speaker 3: in for.
Speaker 4: When He's which no one will notice.
Speaker 3: That movie is only twenty years old at this time.
Speaker 3: That movie is an obscure little film.
Speaker 2: No one's ever seen that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think that was everything I had. This movie
Speaker 3: was very successful, but I do feel like, and let
Speaker 3: me know if I'm just if this is like an
Speaker 3: I've missed the boat thing. But I do think this
Speaker 3: movie has sort of been lost to time. It didn't
Speaker 3: really have staying power.
Speaker 4: I agree, right, It's one of those movies that did
Speaker 4: really well at the time, but like, who's ever like,
Speaker 4: come on, Sonny Boy or fourteen, time to watch The
Speaker 4: Devil's Advocate. You're gonna learn so much about life.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it could be fun, though this is this has
Speaker 2: been lost to time to the point where I barely
Speaker 2: knew what this movie was and I thought I.
Speaker 3: Thought it was completely differentime. I was thought it was
Speaker 3: Met Joe Black, and you thought it was The Devil's
Speaker 3: The Devil's own none of my business.
Speaker 4: This movie would play well in a double feature with
Speaker 4: The Devil Wears Prada, which is also about having a
Speaker 4: demanding boss and a partner who doesn't like it.
Speaker 3: Wow, and I would like to see that.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Does this movie pass the backdel test? I think if
Speaker 3: we're to believe that everyone in the cast is not
Speaker 3: secretly al Pacino.
Speaker 2: Yes, Yes, because Marion talks to women like Jackie and
Speaker 2: Pam and maybe a third woman.
Speaker 4: A mother in law reads the Bible to her, which
Speaker 4: says about stuff.
Speaker 2: Alice her mother in law.
Speaker 3: There is a random third woman who appears for just
Speaker 3: the one scene to be in her undoor and be like,
Speaker 3: sin is amazing. You're like, who the fuck are you?
Speaker 2: I'm pretty sure she's the wife of the Jeffrey Jones character.
Speaker 3: I think that's bomber for her in general.
Speaker 2: Yes, but yeah, they're talking about chardonnay and boobs. I
Speaker 2: mean what passes the more than two women talking about boobs.
Speaker 3: You ever talked with your girlies about boobies? At Yeah?
Speaker 3: I mean I have talked about boobies with my friends
Speaker 3: at the store. But there's so much more to me
Speaker 3: than that. I also talk about butts with my friends
Speaker 3: at the store.
Speaker 2: That is equally important those two things.
Speaker 3: That's seen as a documentary. Yeah, it does technically past
Speaker 3: against and I think it actually does credibly pass the
Speaker 3: Bechdel test. But with it i'm usual caveat. But as
Speaker 3: we've been saying for ten years now, that doesn't mean
Speaker 3: it's a feminist movie.
Speaker 2: So let's get to the actual metric, the metric that
Speaker 2: does mean shit, which is the Bechdel cast nipple scale,
Speaker 2: where we rate the movie zero to five nipples based
Speaker 2: on examining the movie through an intersectional feminist lens. And well,
Speaker 2: I think this is a half nipple shrug for reasons
Speaker 2: I can't even articulate. I don't even know why I
Speaker 2: would give it as many as one half nipple, but
Speaker 2: I guess because we like do cut back to Mary
Speaker 2: Anne pretty frequently and like check in with her and
Speaker 2: what she's going through, which is a very relatable experience
Speaker 2: for many women. So because a lot of women are
Speaker 2: married to men who maybe not literally work for the devil,
Speaker 2: but they're doing very evil work in their lives.
Speaker 3: So my friend's husband works at Meta.
Speaker 2: Oh yikes. So yeah, I'll give this a half nipple.
Speaker 2: And I guess i'll give it to Charlie's there, and
Speaker 2: I don't know, she's doing her best. She's doing her best.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm gonna I don't for some reason. I'm gonna
Speaker 3: give it one. I'm gonna give it one because and
Speaker 3: it's and I give the nipple to Fun conceptually.
Speaker 4: I love Fun and.
Speaker 3: This movie is it true? No, this movie is not feminist.
Speaker 3: It is it does poorly in terms of it mentions
Speaker 3: gender roles, and then proceeds to really do nothing with it,
Speaker 3: and then have the male protagonist who's the literal son
Speaker 3: of the devil maybe or maybe not, The ends with
Speaker 3: him experiencing no consequence.
Speaker 2: So don't worry. This is another story about a male
Speaker 2: redemption arc maybe but not.
Speaker 3: But they don't even bother to redeem him. He just
Speaker 3: I guess he shoots himself with that, like he gets
Speaker 3: to learn nothing, which is ideal. Yeah, so it is
Speaker 3: a very comfortable movie for bad men to watch. I
Speaker 3: don't know. The al Pacino performance is so funny to
Speaker 3: me everywhere. Yeah, okay, so I'm gonna give it one nipple.
Speaker 3: For some reason, I cannot be held accountable for this writing,
Speaker 3: and I'm gonna give it to the line read everywhere
Speaker 3: nice yepes Sarah.
Speaker 4: Well, I'm gonna give a nipple to the line read
Speaker 4: I'm a fan of Man, which I've always loved.
Speaker 3: I don't know.
Speaker 4: That last speech by the Devil like almost makes some
Speaker 4: good points, and then it's like, have sex with your sister,
Speaker 4: and you're like, all right, never mind, mind.
Speaker 3: It is wild that it lands there because he's just
Speaker 3: been talking for I know it's not actually twenty minutes,
Speaker 3: but at least ten minutes. He is like talking in
Speaker 3: circles and he's like, so, as I was saying have
Speaker 3: sex with your sister, You're like, how did we land there?
Speaker 3: How is that where that speech ends?
Speaker 2: At one point he stops and then starts again.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Like it's fantastic. It's sort of like my favorite
Speaker 3: kind of bad movie climax where it's just happening in
Speaker 3: a room but there's really not any actions and right,
Speaker 3: so he's just walking in a circle for like ten minutes.
Speaker 4: It is a big room, so he does have space
Speaker 4: for that. But he's the Yeah, he's the devil. He's
Speaker 4: got a big old room. I mean, if not for
Speaker 4: al Pacino, no one would have watched this thing. You know,
Speaker 4: imagine if they got like Gene Hackman, it would just
Speaker 4: it would have been a whole other deal.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's true. I mean maybe it would have been okay,
Speaker 3: But like, would I have seen al Pacino as the devil? Like?
Speaker 3: That's it just makes sense that puts butts in seats.
Speaker 3: That's one hundred million dollars at the box office.
Speaker 4: Like, I kind of the thing is, I kind of
Speaker 4: do believe that he could be the devil, like and
Speaker 4: I do believe this depiction of the devil because he's
Speaker 4: like just fundamentally annoying, which I think is like biblically accurate.
Speaker 3: And I also I like, just not in a.
Speaker 4: Particularly well considered way, but from my heart, I want
Speaker 4: to give part of that nipple to Charlie's there and
Speaker 4: just for like be putting up sample wall treatments while
Speaker 4: she's got an entire fried piece of chicken in her
Speaker 4: mouth from Popeyes. I just think that's very iconic behavior,
Speaker 4: and it was inspiring to me in some obscure way.
Speaker 2: She's also putting what I think are some of the
Speaker 2: ugliest colors to paint on your wall.
Speaker 4: I know, that's like not even on design sense or
Speaker 4: whatever that horrifying show was. Were they doing that?
Speaker 2: One is like a Shrek green one that.
Speaker 3: Was my childhood bedroom color. I think I think ultimately
Speaker 3: I liked I was like, just let her make her
Speaker 3: apartment tacky. Come on, the tacky is awesome and fun.
Speaker 3: It really is the jab. But Jackie said no TACKI
Speaker 3: no tacky for.
Speaker 2: Jackie, no TALKI for Jackie.
Speaker 3: So Charlie's is just shit out of luck because Jackie
Speaker 3: said no tacky. We got it. Well, we gotta end.
Speaker 3: No episode, Sarah, where can we find the new show?
Speaker 3: When does it come out? Tell us everything?
Speaker 4: So the new show, it's an eight part mini series.
Speaker 4: It's called The Devil.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 4: I think by the time you're hearing this, new episodes
Speaker 4: will already be coming out premieres or has premiered October twentieth.
Speaker 4: We're going to be putting episodes out through mid December.
Speaker 4: There are bonus episodes if you want to hear them,
Speaker 4: or we get more interviews for context, including getting to
Speaker 4: talk to a galer fan theory scholar. Wow, and so
Speaker 4: you can hear it wherever Fine Podcasts are distributed, and
Speaker 4: you can also catch the first episode on the feet
Speaker 4: of my own every two weeks show You're Wrong About,
Speaker 4: which is about misremembered history and Jamie, you and I
Speaker 4: have a bonus episode this very month of October when
Speaker 4: I'm talking to you about bimbos.
Speaker 3: Who would have thought? And I'm so happy to be
Speaker 3: putting that one out too. I love that you're too.
Speaker 3: I mean, you have many areas of expertise, but in
Speaker 3: the easily the top five are bimbos and the Devil.
Speaker 4: But really, yeah, because what do we hate? What's more
Speaker 4: evil than like the Prince of Darkness? It's a woman
Speaker 4: who wears a lip color that we don't like.
Speaker 3: It's true, and that's why the Elizabeth Hurley performance of
Speaker 3: the Devil is the definitive one. Oh my god, listeners,
Speaker 3: thank you for joining us for this episode that's not
Speaker 3: quite as long as the Devil's Advocate, but closer than
Speaker 3: you think. Please illegally pirate this movie. Don't give them
Speaker 3: any money, but like it is a fun movie to
Speaker 3: watch with friends.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the Devil wants you to steal, so do it.
Speaker 3: The Devil loves when you use one, two, three movies
Speaker 3: dot ru and it breaks your computer. I like doing that.
Speaker 3: I was like, I think it has reduced the whatever
Speaker 3: we're bringing back pirrating. And you can follow us in
Speaker 3: all the normal places, that being mainly Instagram, And you
Speaker 3: can join our Patreon aka Matreon, where every month we
Speaker 3: do two original episodes on a theme of ours or
Speaker 3: you are choosing always something weird like Lawyer Bewery, question Mark.
Speaker 3: If you want that, maybe five bucks a month gets
Speaker 3: you that and access to our hundreds of episodes in
Speaker 3: our back catalog.
Speaker 2: Indeed, and with that, shall we go shopping and undress
Speaker 2: in the middle of the store while we're drinking chardonay
Speaker 2: and touch each other's boobs.
Speaker 3: Sure, but I might secretly be out, but you know,
Speaker 3: I hope you are. That's a king for some people,
Speaker 3: all right, Bye bye bye. The Bechdel Cast is a
Speaker 3: production of iHeartMedia, hosted and produced by Me Jamie Loftus.
Speaker 2: And Me Caitlyn Durrante. The podcast is also produced by
Speaker 2: Sophie Lichtermann and.
Speaker 3: Edited by Caitlyn Dorante. Ever heard of them?
Speaker 2: That's me and our logo and merch and all of
Speaker 2: our artwork in fact are designed by Jamie Loftus ever
Speaker 2: heard of her?
Speaker 3: Oh My God, and our theme song, by the way,
Speaker 3: was composed by Mike Kaplan.
Speaker 2: With vocals by Katherine Voskrasinski.
Speaker 3: Iconic and a special thanks to the one and only
Speaker 3: Aristotle Ascevedo.
Speaker 2: For more information about the podcast, please visit Linktree Slash
Speaker 2: Spectelcast